Token gated chat: rooms that check the chain themselves

Token gated chat is a group chat you can enter, and stay in, only while your wallet holds what the owner asked for: a minimum balance of a token, an NFT from a collection, a domain name, or a paid receipt. On Cherry (cherry.fun), a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app for crypto, the check is part of the app itself. You sign in with a wallet, Cherry reads the chain when you ask to join, and it keeps reading it while you are a member. This page is for community owners, token teams, and alpha-group admins who want a gated room without a verify bot.

What token gating does on Cherry

Cherry checks gating rules against the chain at two moments: when a wallet asks to join a public group, and in the background for as long as the wallet is a member. As of 10 September 2026:

• Seven rule types: token balance, NFT collection, Metaplex Core collection, domain, wallet balance or trading volume, wallet app, and payment.
• Up to five rules per group, combined with all (every rule must pass) or any (at least one), with at most one payment rule.
• An eligibility preview on the group’s storefront page (chat.cherry.fun/@<handle>): each requirement is a chip, and once you are signed in the chips you pass are marked.
• Background re-verification of members: a wallet that drops below the minimum is paywalled until it holds again.
• Fungible tokens on Solana are SPL and Token-2022 mints. Cherry also supports token-gated chats for ERC-20 and NFT holders on Base and Ethereum, and for BEP-20 holders on BNB Smart Chain.

How it works

A gated group on Cherry is a public group with a list of rules attached; Cherry runs that list at join time and again on a schedule.

The join path

1. The owner creates a group and adds rules under “Access requirements”. Each rule shows up as a plain requirement line such as “Hold a .sol domain”.
2. A visitor opens chat.cherry.fun/@<handle>. The storefront shows the cover, description, member count, reviews, and the requirement chips. An unmet chip carries a shortcut: Buy for a token or NFT rule (the NFT one opens the collection’s Magic Eden page) and a get-a-domain link for a domain rule.
3. The visitor presses Join. Cherry checks every rule against the signed-in wallet, reading the chain at that moment, so the check sees what the wallet holds now.
4. The combined result decides membership. If only the payment rule is missing, the app routes into the paid flow; if a holdings rule fails, the visitor sees which one.
5. From then on Cherry re-checks the member in the background and either keeps, paywalls, or restores them.

The seven rule types

NFT rules are covered in depth on the NFT-gated chat page, including how Core and standard Metaplex collections differ.

Combining rules

The “How requirements combine” switch sets the logic for the whole group. Under all, a wallet must pass every rule: hold 1,000,000 of your token and own a .sol name, for example. Under any, one passing rule is enough, which is how you admit holders of either of two tokens, or holders of your NFT collection alongside holders of your token. The requirement line joins the rules with “+” or “or”, so a visitor reads the same logic Cherry applies.

Life of a membership

Cherry re-checks members of gated public groups in the background. This is how a membership plays out as of 10 September 2026.

• When a paid period ends without renewal, the member hits the paywall shortly after and stays behind it until they renew.
• Holdings are re-checked on-chain, domain names included, so a wallet that sells loses access. The re-check is not instant: a seller can keep reading for several days after the sale.
• If Cherry cannot read the chain during a re-check, nobody is paywalled, so an outage never locks a member out.
• Soulbound domains such as .skr are verified once at join and never re-checked, because they cannot be transferred.
• Owners and admins are never re-checked. Members who were invited by an owner or admin are exempt from holdings checks (an invite is a vouch) but not from payment.
• An owner can apply new rules to existing members immediately when saving; in that case every member who fails the new rules is paywalled at once.

A paywalled member is still a member. The room stays in their chat list and keeps its position, but message content is withheld everywhere they would see it: the message list, push notifications, and the last-message preview. They see “You no longer meet this group’s requirements” with a Re-check button; once the wallet holds enough again, Re-check restores access on the spot.

What is different from a verify bot

Discord gating through Collab.Land, Guild.xyz, or Matrica, and Telegram gating bots, all bolt a wallet check onto a chat app that has no idea what a wallet is. The mechanism has four moving parts: a bot DMs you a link, you connect and sign on a separate site, the bot assigns a role, and a periodic re-verification asks you to do it again. Each part is a place for a phishing link, a fake screenshot, or a member who sold weeks ago and still holds the role.

On Cherry the wallet signature is the sign-in, so the linking step does not exist. The rules are checked the moment you press Join, and you are in only if they pass. Re-verification is a background read of the chain, with no DM and nothing for the member to do; the only time a member acts is the Re-check button after they have lapsed. A lapsed member is paywalled rather than kicked, so the room keeps its history and the member comes back the moment they hold again.

Who uses it and for what

The three rooms below are live on Cherry, with membership and message counts current as of 11 September 2026.

SNS Club is gated by one domain rule: hold a .sol name. As of 11 September 2026 it has 1,455 members and 3,872 messages, with 5 stars from 2 reviews. The owner’s pitch is the rule itself: “your domain is your pass into the club”. A name is a cheap gate to run: it costs the member something to register and the check is a single on-chain read.

Seeker Club is gated by .skr, the soulbound Seeker domain, which makes it a verified-owner room: 8,637 members and 58,193 messages as of 11 September 2026, 4.9 stars from 41 reviews. Because .skr cannot be transferred, the rule is verified once at join and members are never re-checked. The Seeker Club guide walks through joining from the Seeker.

Solflare Community uses the wallet-app rule: sign in with Solflare to join. It is a partner room with 153 members and 5 stars from 8 reviews as of 11 September 2026. The same rule type lets a wallet team run a room only its own users can enter.

A token team can run this pattern: a holders room gated by a token-balance rule at a floor that filters bots (say 1,000,000 units of the token), a second any rule for the project’s NFT collection so both audiences land in one place, and the airdrop campaign tool pointed at the same wallets. Members can DM any wallet they meet in the room, whether or not that wallet has joined Cherry yet.

Limits and honest caveats

• Group chats are not end-to-end encrypted, by design, so moderation and bots can work. DMs are end-to-end encrypted with keys derived from your wallet.
• Rules run on public groups. An asset-gated group can go private, but then entry is by invite and the rules are kept in a paused, read-only state until the group is public again. A paid group cannot be private at all.
• The self-serve editor offers token balance, NFT collection (standard or Core, detected from the address), domain, and paid entry. Wallet balance, trading-volume and wallet-app rules are set up together with Cherry for partner rooms.
• Background re-checks take time to catch a sale, so a seller can keep reading for a few days unless the owner applies the rules to existing members immediately.
• An outage never paywalls anyone: if Cherry cannot read the chain, members stay in.
• Token amounts are entered in token units, and the minimum applies to the wallet you signed in with; balances are not pooled across wallets.
• On Base, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain, Cherry supports token-gated chats for ERC-20, BEP-20 and NFT holders; the rule details on this page describe Solana.
• Removing every rule from a gated group requires an explicit confirmation, because clearing rules stops renewals and lifts every paywall.

How to start

Creating a gated group takes about a minute in the Cherry web app.

1. Open chat.cherry.fun , connect a wallet (Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, or the Seed Vault Wallet on a Seeker), and sign the sign-in message. Nothing goes on-chain and there is no gas.
2. Press “Create group”. Give it a name, a description, and an avatar, and keep “Group visibility” on Public.
3. Open “Access requirements” (it is collapsed and marked Optional). Switch on “Token-gated”, paste the mint into “Token mint address”, and set “Minimum amount” in token units. The hint under the field tells you the balance is checked at join and re-checked afterwards.
4. Add more rules if you want them: “NFT” takes a collection address or a Magic Eden URL; “Domain” takes a TLD such as .sol; “Paid entry” adds a price. Then pick “How requirements combine”: all or any. Five rules is the maximum.
5. Press “Create group” again to save. Claim a handle in the group settings and share chat.cherry.fun/@<yourhandle>; that page is the storefront with the requirement chips.
6. To change rules later, open the group settings and edit “Access requirements”. When you save, you can apply the new rules to existing members immediately instead of waiting for the next background check.

FAQ

Does token gating on Cherry need a verify bot?

No. You sign in with the wallet itself, so there is nothing to link. Cherry reads the chain when you ask to join a gated group and re-checks members in the background afterwards. Nobody DMs you a verify link.

What happens when a member sells the token?

Cherry re-checks each member’s holdings in the background, so a wallet that sells loses access. The re-check is not instant, and a seller can keep reading for several days after the sale. Once caught, the wallet is paywalled: it stays in the group but message content is withheld until it holds the minimum again and presses Re-check. Owners can also apply the rules to all members immediately.

Can I combine two tokens, or a token and an NFT?

Yes. A group takes up to five rules combined with all (every rule must pass) or any (one is enough). Two token-balance rules under any admits holders of either token; a token rule plus an NFT rule under all admits only wallets that hold both.

How does token gated chat work on Base or Ethereum?

Cherry supports token-gated chats for ERC-20 and NFT holders on Base and Ethereum, and for BEP-20 holders on BNB Smart Chain. On Solana the rule types cover SPL and Token-2022 tokens, Metaplex and Metaplex Core NFTs, and domains.

Can a token-gated group be private?

An asset-gated group can be private, but then entry is by invite and the rules are kept in a paused state until the group is public again. A paid group must stay public because its storefront page is where it sells.

Can I gate a room by a .sol or .skr domain?

Yes. The domain rule checks that the wallet owns at least one name under a TLD: .sol and .sns come from the same registry, .skr is the Seeker domain and is verified once because it is soulbound, and any AllDomains TLD such as .bonk works too.

Does an invite bypass the token requirement?

An invite from an owner or admin counts as a vouch: the invitee skips the holdings checks at join and in the background re-checks. A payment rule still applies to invitees.

Sources

• SNS Club on Cherry
• Seeker Club on Cherry
• Solflare Community on Cherry
• Collab.Land , Guild.xyz and Matrica , the verify-bot services described above
• Solana Token-2022 program
• Metaplex Core documentation
• Solana Name Service and AllDomains , the domain registries the domain rule reads