Saving NFTs with delegate.cash đ
Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles
Dear Bankless Nation,
A pillar of crypto and NFTs is their self-custody potential, which people can rely on to take full control of their digital things.Â
One of the best ways to safely store your own blockchain assets are âcold walletsâ like hardware wallet devices. Think Ledgers, Trezors, the GridPlus Lattice, etc.Â
The problem? In the NFT space folks often store their blue-chips and grails on cold wallets, but then are compelled to use these wallets to claim airdrops their NFTs qualify for.Â
Accordingly, under this security paradigm all it takes to swipe a cold walletâs precious NFTs is one convincing lookalike scam website tricking a user into signing one transaction they donât understand.Â
The good news? With solutions like delegate.cash, you can now keep your NFTs safe while still actively using your cold wallet however you like via delegation.Â
For todayâs post, then, letâs walk through the basics of delegate.cash and how you can use it to step up your NFT security!
-WMP
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Cold wallet, hot UX: using delegate.cash to safely degen
Whatâs up â
Millions and millions of dollars worth of NFTs were stolen by scammers last year. In September 2022, auditor, developer, and writer foobar introduced delegate.cash, an âimmutable primitive to safely claim airdrops for vaulted NFTs,â as a way to help mitigate these scams. Â
This NFT safety solution has been gaining traction ever since as a growing number of projects have directly embraced it, including large NFT studios like Yuga Labs. Other notable projects that already support delegate.cash include Art Blocks, CyberBrokers, and Forgotten Runes Wizardâs Cult.
How delegate.cash works đ
Simply put, delegate.cash lets you secure your valuable NFTs while still actively using them to participate in activities like airdrop claims or DAO governance.Â
The system is a smart contract-based registry that, among other things, lets you delegate your cold walletâs NFT powers to a burner âhot walletâ of your choice like a MetaMask account. Your NFTs will stay in your cold wallet no matter what, but your linked burner can then act on their behalf.Â
With this delegation system, you get the perks of a hardware wallet without having to reach for it every time you need to sign a transaction.Â
Additionally, if you do ending up degening into a scam project, any fallout will be limited to your delegated burner that youâve specifically isolated in case of attack. The NFTs in your cold wallet will remain utterly untouched!
Lastly, keep in mind that delegate.cash is totally immutable (no admin powers or attack vectors), totally onchain (no offchain signature vulnerabilities), and totally independent (self-sufficient with no external dependencies). This trifecta means anyone can reliably use this solution in permissionless fashion. The system is also able to be deployed on any Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain.
How to use delegate.cash đŞ
On delegate.cash and in the context of NFTs, itâs possible to 1) delegate all your cold walletâs NFT powers to a hot wallet of your choice, or 2) delegate a single NFTâs powers to your desired wallet.Â
If youâre interested in the first option, delegating to a throwaway burner, you would follow these steps:
Go to delegate.cash
Connect the cold wallet you vault your NFTs in, e.g. a Ledger device
Copy the address of your designated burner wallet and paste it into the delegate.cash âWalletâ UI like so:
Press the âSubmit Delegationâ button and complete the transaction with your cold wallet to finalize your entry in the registry
Thatâs it! You can then track that and future delegations using the âView recent delegationsâ button below the Wallet delegation UI
Remember: your linked burner will only represent your cold wallet for certain utilities, it canât be abused to drain any NFTs from within your cold wallet!
If youâre interested in just delegating a single NFTâs power instead, the process is similar to the one described above. Youâd flick over to the âNFTâ UI, paste in your desired hot wallet to link, then input the address of the NFT contract and your token ID # and fire off the final transaction to finish up.Â
Why it matters đ§
NFT scammers have gotten increasingly sophisticated in recent years, so itâs no surprise that look-alike trap websites have ensared plenty of earnest minters so far.Â
With solutions like delegate.cash, though, we now have a great defense against this attack vector. We can start turning the tide against these scammers accordingly by teaching more and more people to firewall their valuable NFTs via wallet delegation!
Action steps
Delegate to a hot wallet â If you have any big airdrop claims coming up, consider trying out delegate.cash to defend your grails đĄď¸
Check out my previous write-up if you missed it: The Open Edition Boom đ
Author Bio
William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversalâa Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. Heâs also recently been contributing content to Bankless, JPG, and beyond!
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
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I have personally used DelegateCash and look forward to more projects integrating this!
even if you don't use a cold wallet this would be a good tool to use with your hot wallet that stores all your nfts. thanks for sharing this. i hadn't heard of this tool yet.