With over 16 seasonal holidays in the second half of December observed around the world, we here at Chia Network feel a desire to celebrate the holidays with everyone in the community as we bring 2021 to a close. We would like to do so in a way that enables us to thank everyone for their support in farming Chia since the launch of Mainnet this year by way of “surprise and delight.”
In recognition of this, we are excited to announce the limited release of the Cheeses for Us Meeces Token! Okay, not really… as much as I love the Muppet Christmas Carol as my second favorite holiday movie after Die Hard, it’s actually the Chia Holiday 2021 token! This token is going to be airdropped into every wallet that has received a farmer reward for a block between the launch of Mainnet on March 19th, 2021 and Christmas Day 2021 (actually, these wallets are going to receive TWO tokens!). Later on, in the first half of 2022, you will be able to redeem either one or both tokens for a 10% off discount on Chia merchandise from the forthcoming merch store, or more excitingly, use one of these tokens (limited to one use per wallet!) for a Limited Edition 2021 Holiday Art NFT from Chia!
While in an ideal world we would have loved to simply surprise everyone with a Holiday 2021 Art NFT this year, we have yet to finalize our vision for a standard for what Art NFTs on the Chia blockchain will look like, though it is very high on our list of things to accomplish in the early parts of 2022. We hope instead that this alternative idea will provide a delightful surprise to everyone as we bring Chia Mainnet’s first year to a close!
In order to prepare your wallet in advance to see this token, please make sure you are running the latest beta of the lightweight Chia Wallet, found here, and manually add the token using the following info:
Token ID: 509deafe3cd8bbfbb9ccce1d930e3d7b57b40c964fa33379b18d628175eb7a8f
Name: Chia Holiday 2021
Symbol: CH21
If you don’t want to run the beta wallet at this time and/or add this CAT to it manually, you can safely skip this step and wait a few weeks. (Don’t forget that the Light Wallet should be run on a system OTHER than your farmer, as it will disable farming if not!) The tokens will still be in your wallet either way regardless. In a future update to the wallet early next year you won’t need to add this as we will include it as a CAT in the wallet alongside the existing MRMT and SBX.
FAQ
Q: Previously, there was talk about “rewarding early farmers” formally, is this that?
A: No… this is just a fun little holiday season treat a few of us cooked up in our spare time. If and when it comes to be, that process will be a different situation.
Q: Why are we getting these tokens and not the redeemable items directly?
A: Chia network has yet to finalize our ideal design standards for what art NFTs will look like on the blockchain, and while we could’ve whipped up something specifically one-off for this, we are firm believers in doing things the right way the first time to set a stable standard. Ultimately, to be completely truthful, this was one of those crazy late-night ideas a few of us cooked up in the days leading up to the holiday break. We felt this was the most practical way for us to surprise and delight the community in a meaningful way that we were confident we could deliver on properly to you in the future.
Q: When will I get my tokens?
A: Given it’s the holiday season, we intend to airdrop these tokens between Christmas Day and January 1, but surprises may arrive, so we will be in touch with the community to keep you updated on things as necessary if plans change. We want to tie this little surprise in with the holiday season, but we also want to do it in a way that does not harm Chia staff’s much deserved opportunity to enjoy the holiday break with their family.
Q: How can I see/access my token?
A: Tokens will be visible in your wallet if you are running our Light Wallet beta. However, you don’t need to run the beta, only if you wish to access the tokens. Do remember that running the Light Wallet beta, as outlined in its details, means ideally running it on a system separate from your farming software. Failure to do so will result in it disabling your farming until you close it and restart your farming software. (This is part of why it’s a beta!)
Q: I’m a little fuzzy on working with the Light Wallet beta… it seems complicated, do I have to?
A: No, you don’t actually! In the not terribly far out future, we’ll be folding the light wallet beta back into the main software package to replace the old wallet. When that time comes, it will “just work” in place of the old wallet. While that is still going to be a few weeks and maybe even months out, it will happen before you need to worry about redeeming these tokens anywhere, so the issue will self-resolve for you if you would rather just sit tight and wait for things to update on their own over the coming weeks!
Q: What will the art NFT look like?
A: Great question! I am going to be 100% honest and say we don’t know yet, but we will share with you more about that in 2022 😉
Q: So does this mean Chia is finally getting a merchandise store?
A: Yep! It has always been our intent to do so, and we had made a few attempts this year to set something up. While we weren’t able to deliver on that goal in the latter half of 2021, we have every intention of doing so in the first half of 2022!
Q: What if I have been participating in the Chia ecosystem, but have not yet won a block reward on my own?
A: While we can understand everyone’s desire to participate in this event, we have specifically elected to use this as an opportunity to reward farmers who have contributed blocks to the chain directly during the first year of Chia Mainnet’s operation. That is not to say we do not appreciate the contributions and support of others in the ecosystem, and we do plan to find ways to share our gratitude with others for their support as time goes on.
Q: I lost access to my initial farming wallet and have not farmed a block since!
A: We genuinely sympathize with that, truly. Unfortunately, the way we are conducting this drop will result in tokens only being sent to farmer wallets, and as I am sure you can imagine the only way we can possibly verify that you farmed a block previously would be by way of verifying your ownership of a wallet that did so, which if you had would negate the problem. We’re in a bit of a pickle there, sadly.
Q: You often stressed that Chia will never do an airdrop, what gives?
A: Nothing has changed there. We will never airdrop XCH… (and anyone claiming to be part of us doing so is trying to scam you!) The Chia Holiday 2021 token, however, is a special token we are gifting to the community for the holiday season.
