Over the last year I have heard a few community members mention that it would be a nice feature to have to be able to lock the asset description, so that it can no longer be edited.
This would allow issuers to issue a token, and lock both the supply and the asset description independently, and would help give potential token buyers/holders confidence that not only can additional supply not be issued, but that the asset description will never change. Any artwork or metadata that the token points to will be immutable and will not change unexpectedly in the future.
With the supply and asset description locked, the only privileges an asset owner would have is to be able to transfer asset ownership to a new address.
To me it sounds like a good idea because more options better!
There are tradeoffs of course. This is going to cause a lot of heartache when people lock a description to point somewhere that no longer resolves the following year. Even if the asset issuer is warned to be thoughtful about locking the description, we know that if given enough rope people will surely hang themselves fairly often.
I think the compelling advantage is the strong assurance to a potential buyer or collector that the asset owner will not pull a “bait and switch”.
Unfortunately it may still be possible to change the media/content unbeknownst to the collectors depending on where that content is hosted. For a savvy investor however, this locked description means a lot if the content is inscribed on-chain, or hosted somewhere where it can’t be changed like on IPFS.
To be fair, my “more options better” remark was a bit cheeky. Anyone who has used Microsoft Word knows this is not necessarily true. Creating a Counterparty asset using FreeWallet, for example, is not overly complicated now, so the risk of over-complicating things doesn’t seem to be an issue.
I support this. There is certainly demand for this feature.
I can think of some other improvements for assets as well. I will find time to write these down within the next weeks. I suggest we bundle several asset upgrades later this year.
I think this is a very good idea now that Counterparty is being used for NFTs where it is expected the data associated to a token is immutable.
Having the ability to lock the description is superior to sending the asset ownership to a burn address, as sending the asset to a burn address prevents the creation of subassets
I am supportive of this feature, though with the new CIP25 integration I think making sure the user is pointed to education on what the choices are for “storing data in the description field” is important.
The rave right now seems to be ordinals, and its a “now or never, on chain” rush feeling to mint… Same goes for Stamps to a great degree… But what if we expand the asset formats to something theoretically “better” in the future and many users locked their descriptions?
After reading through a lot of the forums and github I’ve noticed this continuing question of
How is the data stored? Will it be there in a decade still? (people don’t trust imgur, youtube, soundcloud)
Will there be new ways to store information “on and off chain” in the future (or now) and the user may regret locking the token?
Does the user still have freedom to mint outside “Supported Asset Description Formats”
After some of the research, my two cents for 1/2/3 mentioned above is:
“It is the sole responsibility of the issuer to decide to lock the token in any description type they want”
… which I think aligns with the basis of Theo’s CIP:
(Not sure if there is any more documentation on the idea yet)
We may point to a heavy warning and some immediate links to documentation on the implication of what locking the description is in theory before the action is confirmed. Especially for users holding ancient or old issuances they want to secure from “description rug” but want to do so in the “correct” manner of their choice.
I think it’s important people are educated in how many type of descriptions they could use and for what purpose, especially if options will keep expanding. While also letting the user know all the previous changes to description are still in the Issuances tab on xchain. So history is saved in some manner even if locked to a new description.
Something that pops into my mind right now as a main example would be the heavy usage of https://easyasset.art/ minting with Arweave in Fake Rare’s and other projects. Would it be recommended for those assets to be locked for their purpose in the format they are now? What would the resistance or counterargument of this function look like in theory if people start locking away?
I wonder what education could be created to explain the choices for all types of enhanced asset info to make sure the user knows which would be the best for their specific function they are looking to do, or if leaving the description unlocked may even be the best choice for their specific purpose.