How to create a token gated group chat on Cherry

This guide walks through how to create a token gated group chat on Cherry, the wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app for crypto: a public group that only wallets holding a minimum balance of your token can enter and stay in. The setup takes about a minute in the Cherry web app, and there is no verify bot, no verification site, and no re-verify DM to your members. It is written for community owners, token teams, and alpha-group admins who already know what a mint address is.

Before you start

• A wallet signed in at chat.cherry.fun . Sign-in is a message signature, so nothing goes on-chain and there is no gas.
• The mint address of the token you are gating on, taken from the project’s own site or a token page you trust. Cherry looks the mint up as you paste it and shows the symbol back to you, which is your check against pasting a pool address.
• A minimum balance in token units, the number a holder sees in their wallet. The editor does not take raw base units.
• Public visibility. The “Access requirements” card appears only on a public group. An asset-gated group can be made private later, and the rules are kept in a paused, read-only state until it is public again.

Step 1: Create the group

Press “Create group” in the Cherry web app. Fill the name field, which is prompted with “Name the group”, and add an avatar if you have one. Leave “Visibility” on “Public”: the hint under it reads “discoverable from outside: anyone can find and join”, which is what you want for a room people will find through its link.

You know it worked when a collapsed “Access requirements” card appears under the visibility row with the word “Optional” next to it.

Step 2: Set the token requirement

Open “Access requirements” and switch on “Token requirement”, which the editor describes as “Minimum SPL token balance to join”. Paste the mint into “Token mint address”. The field shows “Looking up token” for a moment, then a small preview with the token’s symbol and name, plus a verified badge for tokens on the verified list. Type your floor into “Minimum amount”.

Cherry reads the balance straight from the chain and adds up every account in which the wallet holds your mint. In practice, a member who buys your token to get in passes the gate a second or two after the swap, with no snapshot to wait for. Token-2022 mints are covered too, and you set one up exactly like a classic SPL token.

You know it worked when the preview shows the symbol you expect and the summary line next to “Access requirements” reads “Token-gated”.

Step 3: Add a second rule and pick all or any

Three more rule types sit in the same card. “NFT requirement” (“Hold an NFT from a collection”) takes a “Collection address or Magic Eden URL” and resolves standard Metaplex and Metaplex Core collections from the address. “Domain requirement” (“Hold a wallet domain”) takes a TLD such as .sol or .skr. “Paid entry” charges for the seat; as of 10 September 2026 the split on paid entry is 70% to the owner’s wallet and 30% to Cherry.

As soon as two rules are on, a “To join, members need” control appears with two options: “All of these” and “Any one”. Combine them deliberately.

Five is the ceiling: the editor will not take a sixth rule, and only one payment rule is allowed per group.

You know it worked when the summary next to “Access requirements” lists every active rule, for example “Token-gated · NFT”.

Step 4: Publish and read your own storefront

Press “Create”. Every public group gets a public landing page; the “Link” row in group settings shows the exact URL to copy, which is chat.cherry.fun/@<handle> for groups that have a handle and a /g/<group id> link otherwise.

That page is where your rules face the buyer. Each one renders as a chip carrying a sentence Cherry builds from your inputs: a token rule reads “Hold at least 1000000 SYMBOL”, a domain rule reads “Hold a .sol domain”. A signed-in visitor sees a check mark on each chip they pass, a Buy button beside a token rule they fail that opens the in-app swap for that mint, and a refresh control that re-runs the check on the spot.

SNS Club is a live example of what that page looks like when a gate is doing its job. Its single rule is a domain rule, and on 11 September 2026 the room had 1,455 members, 3,872 messages, and 5 stars from 2 reviews.

You know it worked when your own link, opened in a logged-out window, shows the requirement chips and the member count.

Step 5: Live with the rules after launch

The gate keeps running after launch. Cherry watches for lapsed paid periods in the background and re-verifies each member’s on-chain holdings, so a wallet that sells loses access. Four behaviours are worth knowing before your first seller shows up:

• The re-check is not instant: a seller can keep reading for several days after the sale. Once paywalled, the wallet stays a member and keeps its history; message content is withheld until the balance comes back.
• If Cherry cannot read the chain during a re-check, nobody is paywalled.
• Invited members are exempt from holdings checks. An invite from an owner or admin is a vouch, so use invites for the mod you trust and the partner who holds through a multisig. A payment rule still applies to them.
• When you edit rules in group settings, a toggle called “Apply to existing members now” decides the timing. Switched on, “members who don’t meet the requirements are paywalled right away”. Left off, they are re-checked on the regular cycle.

Troubleshooting

The field says the token was not found. The mint is wrong, or you pasted a pool, pair, or token-account address in its place. If the token lookup is unavailable, the editor says so and saves the rule by address, which still gates correctly.

Nobody passes although they hold plenty. Check “Minimum amount”: it is read in token units, so a floor typed in base units asks for a billion times more than you meant.

A member bought your token and still cannot get in. The status shown on the storefront can lag briefly behind the wallet. The refresh control next to the requirement chips reads the wallet fresh and re-runs the check at once.

You want a private paid room. That combination is rejected: a group with a payment rule has to stay public, because the public page is where it sells. Asset-only rules can go private.

You cleared the rules and nothing changed. Removing every rule from a gated group needs an explicit confirmation, which exists so nobody wipes a paid group’s economics while editing a description.

You want to gate on wallet balance, trading volume, or a specific wallet app. Cherry supports those rules, but they are not in the self-serve editor; partner rooms have them set up together with Cherry.

Related guides

• Token-gated chat covers the full rule set, the eligibility model, and background re-verification.
• NFT-gated chat goes deeper on collection rules, including Metaplex Core.
• Paid communities and channels covers one-time entry and recurring memberships.
• Wallet-gated clubs is the pattern for rooms gated by what a wallet holds or how it trades.
• Multichain token-gated chat describes gating for ERC-20, BEP-20, and NFT holders beyond Solana.
• Seeker Club shows a domain-gated room with a soulbound TLD.

Ready to build it? Create a group at chat.cherry.fun and set your first rule.

FAQ

How do I gate a chat by token balance?

Create a public group in the Cherry web app, open “Access requirements”, switch on “Token requirement”, paste the mint into “Token mint address”, and type your floor into “Minimum amount”. Cherry reads the wallet’s balance of that mint when someone asks to join, and again in the background afterwards.

Can one group chat have multiple gating rules?

Yes. A group takes up to five rules, at most one of them a payment rule. Once two rules are on, the editor shows a “To join, members need” control with “All of these” and “Any one”: the first requires every rule to pass, the second admits a wallet that passes at least one.

Do I need Collab.Land or a verify bot to gate a chat on Cherry?

No. Your wallet signature is the sign-in, so there is no account to link and no separate verification site. Cherry reads the chain at the moment someone joins, and nobody sends your members a verify link.

What minimum token balance should I set?

Set it in token units, the number a holder sees in their wallet, and pick a floor that costs a bot more than a seat is worth. Owners of low-priced memecoins usually land in the millions of units; owners of a small-supply token use single digits.

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 paywalled, the wallet stays in the group, message content is withheld, and access returns when the balance is back. Saving a rule change with “Apply to existing members now” runs the check immediately instead.

Sources

• SNS Club on Cherry