<summary><strong>Table of Contents</strong></summary>
- [Stakeholder Responses](#stakeholder-responses)
- [Nodes](#nodes)
- [Wallets](#wallets)
- [Projects](#projects)
- [Industry](#industry)
- [Statements](#statements)
- [Disapprove](#disapprove)
- [Neutral](#neutral)
- [Approve](#approve)
</details>
The goal of the [Cash Improvement Proposal (CHIP) process](https://blog.bitjson.com/bitcoin-cash-upgrade-2023/#why-chips) is to coordinate upgrades to Bitcoin Cash without a central authority by developing proposals in a collaborative, public process.
**CHIP maintainers are expected to actively seek out stakeholders and demonstrate widespread ecosystem approval.**
This includes approval from nodes, wallets, and other open source software projects, educational institutions and community initiatives, and industry actors like exchanges, miners, services, and other businesses.
## Stakeholder Responses
The CHIP maintainer has contacted the following stakeholders for approval of this specification. Public records are kept of stakeholder responses to the following standard request:
**Subject**: Nov 14 deadline: CashTokens in 2023 BCH upgrade
Hello,
This is a formal request for approval from {{Organization}} regarding the May 2023 upgrade of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
CHIP-2022-02-CashTokens has achieved the Cash Improvement Proposal (CHIP) milestones required to be locked in on November 15, 2022 and activated on May 15, 2023.
Support for the CashTokens upgrade is available in the following open-source software:
- Nodes: Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN), Bitcoin Verde
- Indexers: Chaingraph, Fulcrum
- Project & Libraries: Bitauth IDE, Electron Cash, Libauth.
The CHIP contributors believe {{Organization}} is an important stakeholder in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. **Please respond to the following question by 12:00 UTC on November 14, 2022. Non-responses will be considered "Abstain (Neutral)".**
<blockquote>
Does {{Organization}} approve of activating CHIP-2022-02-CashTokens in the May 2023 Upgrade to Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?
To make a [public statement](https://github.com/bitjson/cashtokens/blob/master/stakeholders.md#statements) explaining this decision, please provide it here (required for disapproval): <br/><br/>
Responses to this standard communication are recorded for all organizations that have been contacted. If an organization has not yet rendered an opinion, their response is marked as `Pending`. Stakeholders may update their response by either contacting the CHIP Maintainer or [directly submitting a pull request](https://github.com/bitjson/cashtokens/edit/master/stakeholders.md).
- [General Protocols](https://generalprotocols.com) (November 6, 2022): "[General Protocols Statement on CashTokens and P2SH32 CHIP Proposals for the May 2023 BCH Upgrade](https://read.cash/@GeneralProtocols/general-protocols-statement-on-cashtokens-and-p2sh32-chip-proposals-for-the-may-2023-bch-upgrade-c5248f65)"
- [Bitcoin Cash Node](https://bitcoincashnode.org/) (November 10, 2022): "[BCHN Statement on CHIPs for May 2023](https://read.cash/@bitcoincashnode/bchn-statement-on-chips-for-may-2023-36023169)"
> Beyond simply being able to represent other assets on Bitcoin Cash, CashTokens also enable decentralized applications on Bitcoin Cash comparable to Ethereum (ETH) contract functionality, while retaining Bitcoin Cash's >1000x efficiency advantage in transaction and block validation.
> Support for tokens has been a frequent request by members of the BCH community. However, this CashTokens CHIP is a lot more than that. Not only do these primitives give BCH the capability to have traditional tokens akin to those found on other chains, it also gives BCH incredibly powerful smart-contract capabilities comparable to those available in EVM. And best of all, it does it at effectively zero-cost to scaling and in a way that aligns naturally with BCH's UTXO model. In my opinion, this is the elegant, groundbreaking, approach that many of us have been waiting for and, thus, this CHIP has my full endorsement.
> I believe CashTokens is a much needed addition to the BCH consensus rules that will be very lightweight and low cost (as in zero cost) for anybody not interesting in using it. However, for those interested in using it, it unlocks a whole slew of usecases and makes BCH much more than just cash – but brings along programmable money and miner-validated tokens. We need such features in BCH to compete with other coins. BCH is already very fast and scalable, and if it also has utxo-based tokens and better smart contracts, there is no reason for us not to get to the moon and beyond!
> Approved! This CHIP adds valuable and powerful capabilities to Bitcoin Cash. I am particularly pleased that it does so efficiently and without at all harming the monetary properties of the coin.
> The idea of UTXO tokens on Bitcoin is as old as `OP_CHECKCOLORVERIFY` circa 2013 so this concludes almost a decade long process! As someone who spent more than a year trying to move "Group Tokenization" forward, I am thrilled with how it has evolved and converged to a really elegant technical solution designed to perfectly integrate with the existing Script VM. CashTokens will unlock so much power for application builders, and all that at no expense to existing users or scalability! I fully support this proposal!
> CashTokens will be a great addition to BCH. Not only because it adds real, miner-validated tokens to the ecosystem, but because its design makes it possible for transaction script designers to create complex contracts in fewer bytes. This in turn means even more room for innovation, and possibilities that don't exist anywhere else.
> The Cashtokens CHIP is the thing that makes me the most optimistic about BCH long term by far. It perfectly builds upon previous smart contract upgrades and really sets BCH apart from other blockchains. Excited for the possibilities this enables!
> I support the CashTokens CHIP for lock-in. I'm excited to use these features in flipstarter.me and other projects for better user experience, decentralization, and censorship-resistance — in a way that actually scales.
> I believe that CashTokens CHIP is a very important upgrade for BCH. SLP was one reason I favored BCH when I had to chose between coins years ago. I think CashTokens are the solution to fix SLP issues like token burn, indexers and many other.
> Cash tokens is possibly the longest researched project with several teams starting and abandoning the project. In Bitcoin Cash the first paper was published in 2017. It was called op-group. I've been involved with all of the revisions in one way or another and for me the latest CHIP is "good enough". Which means that in my opinion it can be used to elevate the chain to allow many more usecases and we can depend on it being maintainable and usable for many years to come. [[...]](https://read.cash/@TomZ/completing-bitcoin-cash-with-cash-tokens-e530d38d)
> The Bitcoin Cash Podcast wholeheartedly supports the November lock-in and May implementation [[...]](https://bitcoincashpodcast.com/blog/chip-endorsement-may-2023)
> The demise of SLP has cost the BCH community a great deal but demonstrated a need for on-chain safe tokens and enhanced expressiveness while staying within the original goals of BitcoinCash. CashTokens has exceeded the expectations and is exactly what is needed to bring BCH back to the right balance between safety, scalability, and expressiveness. This is the most important improvement to the BCH VM ever.
> This proposal makes two novel contributions to Bitcoin Cash. First, it elucidates that fungible and non-fungible tokens should be cryptocurrency primitives rather than applications. And second, it shows how these primitives can be introduced with a minimally disputive change to the protocol. The implications are nothing less than revolutionary. Stablecoins, prediction markets and other applications will be able to operate with the high throughput and low cost that Bitcoin Cash has already demonstrated. If Bitcoin Cash is to become world money then we must adopt this CHIP.
> Due to the proposal's name, it was widely expected to be a straightforward "consensus tokenization" proposal for BCH, comparable to colored coins and SLP protocols that came before it. CashTokens, however, is designed with UTXO smart contract interactions as a priority, and it should be viewed as powerful, message-carrying general computing "tokens" instead of limited-function tradable asset-carriers. At General Protocols, we believe we are in a position to take full advantage of the proposal once it is activated. [[..]](https://read.cash/@GeneralProtocols/general-protocols-statement-on-cashtokens-and-p2sh32-chip-proposals-for-the-may-2023-bch-upgrade-c5248f65)
> Tokens are inevitable part of experimentation process on blockchains and they enable a lot of innovation by creating a financial incentive to entrepreneurs. And since we can do it much more effectively and cheaper than on other chains, I say we should do it! I don't fully understand the technical details of the proposal, but I trust the people behind it. These people are way smarter than me and I trust they'll do their jobs well.
> Yes, BitcartCC approves the CashTokens upgrade and will definitely support it after relevant upgrades and work with Electron Cash maintainers. That's an amazing proposal!
> As Bitcoin Cash supporters, we approve this CHIP and the development of CashTokens.
>
> —<cite>[Melis](https://www.melis.io/)</cite>
> We fully support the CHIP-2022-02-CashTokens to be activated in the upcoming upgrade and we are excited to enable support for CashTokens within the Zapit wallet along with all of its use cases. Looking forward to enabling all our current features and services provided to tokens for the new token format as well.
> CashTokens is a culmination of years of experimentation on tokenization in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash blockchains. By implementing this as a contract-issued commitment, it has provided developers with a way, not only to issue tokens, but also to build advanced decentralized applications. Peer-to-peer cash will become more programmable than ever. As one of the prominent developers of user-facing applications in Bitcoin Cash, we are very much excited by the possibilities this upgrade can enable. Thus, we fully support the deployment of CashTokens for May 2023 upgrade. [[...]](https://twitter.com/_paytaca_/status/1589816654137286657)
> One Surgery remains committed to developing tools for the global surgery community, bringing surgical care solutions to everyone in the world. We believe #BitcoinCash, and the potential of on-chain tokenization (through #CashTokens innovation), will give One.Surgery greater flexibility in creating non-custodial cryptocurrency solutions to empower advocacy, research and education efforts to our global surgery community. [[...]](https://twitter.com/OneDotSurgery/status/1590184970160861184)
> Bitcoin Cash is designed to be the future of finance, and CashTokens is the obvious toolkit that enables that future on the highly efficient and scalable UTXO system. CashTokens has my full support, and hope it gets implemented into the May ‘23 upgrade, where all BCH wallets support it to allow the system to flourish and harness real economic activity and growth.
> I support the CashTokens proposal as a well considered, long awaited and important addition to the Bitcoin Cash protocol feature set. [[...](https://memo.cash/post/07ba05702abe1fc409f8bb58dd86a968da94135b94a10e04086a9e4c7212663a)]
> The upcoming update sounds exciting and we for sure are approving the CHIP-2022-02-CashTokens.
>
> —<cite>[Guarda](https://guarda.com/)</cite>
> As a project, we would like to formally declare our support for the following CHIPs [[...]](https://read.cash/@bitcoincashnode/bchn-statement-on-chips-for-may-2023-36023169)
> As `bch-rpc-explorer` maintainer I'd like to say that I will add the necessary features to the explorer to display tokens implemented via CashTokens ver. 2.2.0
> The amount of thought and care that has been put into the CashTokens proposal is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I fully endorse and approve this upgrade, and am excited to build new products and services on top of it!
SLP showed that there was high demand for tokens in the BCH ecosystem. Flaws in SLP such as indexing and accidental token burn made it a victim of its own success. The careful design of CashTokens avoids these problems and enables even more functionality. bchmempool supports the CashTokens CHIP.
<details>
<summary><em>Signature</em></summary>
Signed by [plowsof](https://github.com/plowsof) and [Rucknium](https://github.com/Rucknium):
> MistSwap is very excited by the potential decentralized applications and economic innovation enabled by CashTokens. We appreciate the great work led by Jason and everyone else who has contributed to building, experimenting, and engineering the token standards along this long path to today: thank you!
> Tokenization is an important technology that is currently underused in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. I have been using tokens since the CounterParty protocol, and I am looking forward to using the tools and services that will be built on CashTokens.
> CashTokens, by virtue of their interactions with lockscripts allows for new and interesting usecases and might be the missing piece allowing proper monetization of information.
> We at Buy Hodl Sell support the CashTokens CHIP proposal for the May 2023 BCH upgrade. We are continually impressed by the constant progress of the Bitcoin Cash network and are excited for the many economic use-cases and innovations that native tokens on the BCH chain enable. This is a great step for both Bitcoin Cash and decentralised blockchains as a whole.
The following statements have been submitted from organizations that disapprove of this CHIP.
> Thanks for reaching out to me for input. I replied to you about this back in February: https://twitter.com/jasonchavannes/status/1496508571642695680. I also wrote a blog post in 2018 about why Layer 2 tokens are better than Layer 1: https://jasonc.me/blog/layer-2-tokens-bitcoin-cash. My stance remains the same. I Disapprove, I think BCH already supports tokens in a better way. Cramming too much into Layer 1 is why Ethereum can't scale.
**Maintainer Response**: This statement does not appear to examine the contents of the CashTokens CHIP. 1) Existing, "Layer 2" tokens cannot support contract use cases without trusted counterparties; this introduces middlemen, harms censorship-resistance, and prevents deployment of many decentralized applications on Bitcoin Cash – see [CashTokens: Motivation](https://github.com/bitjson/cashtokens#motivation). 2) CashToken validation is stateless, so Bitcoin Cash will remain thousands of times more scalable than "global state" systems like Ethereum – see [CashTokens: Benefits](https://github.com/bitjson/cashtokens#benefits).
The CashTokens CHIP broadens the capabilities of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain for users and application developers. CashTokens will likely have a neutral effect on fungibility and privacy for current and future users who use Bitcoin Cash only as electronic cash. On behalf of the CashFusion Red Team project, I give a "neutral" response. I hope to see research and development on ways to improve fungibility and privacy within the token ecosystem, e.g. token-specific CoinJoin protocols.
<details>
<summary><em>Signature</em></summary>
Signed by [Rucknium](https://github.com/Rucknium):
```
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
The CashTokens CHIP broadens the capabilities of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain
for users and application developers. CashTokens will likely have a neutral
effect on fungibility and privacy for current and future users who use Bitcoin
Cash only as electronic cash. On behalf of the CashFusion Red Team project,
I give a "neutral" response. I hope to see research and development on ways
to improve fungibility and privacy within the token ecosystem, e.g.
