Mintable XC-20s

Introduction

As covered in the XC-20 Overview, there are two types of XC-20s: external and mintable. The key distinction between external and mintable XC-20s, is that mintable XC-20s represent assets that are minted/burned in Moonbeam directly, but have native XCM interoperability features. Also, mintable XC-20s can be transferred to any other parachain as long as it is registered as an XCM asset on that chain, as covered in the XCM overview page. In contrast, external XC-20s represent assets that are locked in Moonbeam's sovereign account in either the relay chain or other parachains, and are registered as such on Moonbeam. This guide will cover mintable XC-20s.

All XC-20s are Substrate assets at their core. Typically with Substrate assets, developers need to interact directly with the Substrate API. However, Moonbeam removes the need for Substrate knowledge and allows users and developers to interact with these assets through an ERC-20 interface via a precompile contract. Therefore, developers can use standard Ethereum developer tooling to interact with these assets. Mintable XC-20s include an extension of the ERC-20 interface with some additional functionality for managing the asset and setting the metadata, such as the name, symbol, and decimals for the asset. There are also some additional roles in place for asset registration and management.

Currently, mintable XC-20 assets need to be created through democracy proposals and be voted on via on-chain governance. Once a proposal has received majority votes and has been approved the asset can then be registered and minted on Moonbeam. In addition, there is a deposit (bond) associated to the creation of a mintable XC-20 token.

Mintable XC-20 Roles

There are some roles that are important to take note of when registering and managing mintable XC-20s. These roles, with the exception of the creator, can all be designated to other accounts by the owner via the setTeam extrinsic. The roles are as follows:

• Owner - the account which owns the contract and has the ability to manage the asset
• Creator - the account responsible for creating the asset and paying the associated deposit
• Issuer - the designated account capable of issuing or minting tokens. Defaults to the owner
• Admin - the designated account capable of burning tokens and unfreezing accounts and assets. Defaults to the owner
• Freezer - the designated account capable of freezing accounts and assets. Defaults to the owner

The breakdown of responsibilities for each role is as follows:

Role	Mint	Burn	Freeze	Thaw
Owner	✓	✓	✓	✓
Creator	X	X	X	X
Issuer	✓	X	X	X
Admin	X	✓	X	✓
Freezer	X	X	✓	X

The Mintable XC-20 Solidity Interface

The Solidity interface for Mintable XC-20 tokens is a combination of the following three interfaces:

• ERC-20 Interface — as described in the XC-20 overview page
• Permit Interface (EIP-712 compliant) — as described in the XC-20 overview page
• Mintable interface — as described in the following section

Mintable XC-20 Specific Functions

Mintable XC-20s include additional functions that only the owner or the designated account is allowed to call. They are declared in the LocalAsset.sol interface, and are as follows:

• mint(address to, uint256 value) - mints a given amount of tokens to a specified address. Only the owner and the issuer are capable of calling this function

  Note

  The maximum value that can be minted is actually limited to uint128. A Mintable XC-20 will behave differently if the total supply is over 2^128 (without decimals), the mint will fail due to overflow checks. This is unlikely to happen for traditional tokens as they are not meant to reach such high numbers. For more information, please refer to the Mintable XC-20s vs ERC-20s section of the Security Considerations page.

• burn(address from, uint256 value) - burns a given amount of tokens from a specified address. Only the owner and the admin are capable of calling this function

  Note

  The burn function in Substrate behaves differently than the standard ERC-20 burn function as it does not require the from account to have the amount of tokens specified by the value. For more information, please refer to the Mintable XC-20s vs ERC-20s section of the Security Considerations page.

• freeze(address account) - freezes a specified account so that the tokens for that account are locked and any further transactions are not allowed. Only the owner and the freezer are capable of calling this function

• thaw(address account) - unfreezes an account so now the specified account can interact with the tokens again. Only the owner and the admin are capable of calling this function
• freezeAsset() - freezes the entire asset operations and locks up the tokens. Only the owner and the freezer are capable of calling this function
• thawAsset() - unfreezes the entire asset operations and unlocks the tokens. Only the owner and the admin are capable of calling this function
• transferOwnership(address owner) transfers the ownership of an asset to a new specified account. Only the owner is capable of calling this function
• setTeam(address issuer, address admin, address freezer) - enables the owner to specify the issuer, admin, and freezer of the tokens. Please check out the Mintable XC-20 Roles section for a description of each role. Only the owner is capable of calling this function
• setMetadata(string calldata name, string calldata symbol, uint8 decimals) - sets the name, symbol, and decimal of the asset. The decimals are also configurable and not confined to the same amount of decimals as the native Moonbeam assets
• clearMetadata() - clears the existing name, symbol, and decimals of the asset

Retrieve List of Mintable XC-20s

To fetch a list of the mintable XC-20s currently available on the Moonbase Alpha TestNet, head to Polkadot.js Apps and make sure you're connected to Moonbase Alpha. Unlike external XC-20s, mintable XC-20s will not show up under the Assets page on Polkadot.js Apps. To query the available mintable XC-20s, you have to navigate to the Developer tab and select Chain State from the dropdown, and take the following steps:

1. From the selected state query dropdown, choose localAssets
2. Select the asset extrinsic
3. Disable the include option slider
4. Send the query by clicking on the + button

The result will display the asset ID along with some additional information for all of the registered mintable XC-20s on Moonbase Alpha. The asset ID is automatically generated and is calculated by BLAKE2 hashing a nonce that represents the number of local assets created. The ID is then used to access the asset and calculate the precompile address.

Retrieve Metadata for Mintable XC-20s

To quickly get more information about a specific mintable XC-20 such as the name, symbol and multi location of the asset, you can use the metadata extrinsic to return metadata. For this example, you can feel free to use asset ID 144992676743556815849525085098140609495, and take the following steps:

1. From the selected state query dropdown, choose localAssets
2. Select the metadata extrinsic
3. Enable the include option slider
4. Enter in the asset ID that was returned from calling the asset extrinsic. Please note that if you copy and paste the asset ID with the commas, the commas will automatically be removed and the number might be cut off. Make sure it's the exact same number as the ID
5. Send the query by clicking on the + button

With the results from the metadata, you can see that the asset ID corresponds to the TestLocalAsset mintable XC-20.

Calculate Mintable XC-20 Precompile Addresses

Now that you have retrieved a list of the available mintable XC-20s, before you can interact with them via the precompile, you need to derive the precompile address from the asset ID. The asset ID can be retrieved by following the instructions in the Retrieve List of Mintable XC-20s section.

The mintable XC-20 precompile address is calculated using the following:

address = "0xFFFFFFFE..." + DecimalToHex(AssetId)

Given the above calculation, the first step is to take the u128 representation of the asset ID and convert it to a hex value. You can use your search engine of choice to look up a simple tool for converting decimals to hex values. For asset ID 144992676743556815849525085098140609495, the hex value is 6D1492E39F1674F65A6F600B4589ABD7.

Mintable XC-20 precompiles can only fall between 0xFFFFFFFE00000000000000000000000000000000 and 0xFFFFFFFEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. As such, the first 8 characters of the address will always be FFFFFFFE. Since Ethereum addresses are 40 characters long, you will need to prepend 0s to the hex value until the address has 40 characters.

The hex value that was already calculated is 32 characters long, so prepending the first 8 characters, FFFFFFFE, to the hex value will give you the 40 character address you need to interact with the XC-20 precompile. For this example, the full address is 0xFFFFFFFE6D1492E39F1674F65A6F600B4589ABD7.

Now that you've calculated the mintable XC-20 precompile address, you can use the address to interact with the XC-20 like you would with any other ERC-20 in Remix.

Register a Mintable XC-20

This section of the guide will show you how to register an asset on Polkadot.js Apps and interact with the mintable XC-20 specific functions using Remix. If you simply want to interact with a mintable XC-20 through the standard ERC-20 interface, please refer to the Interact with the Precompile Using Remix section of the XC-20 precompile page.

Checking Prerequisites

To register a mintable XC-20 on Moonbase Alpha, you'll need to have the following:

• MetaMask installed and connected to the Moonbase Alpha TestNet
• An account funded with DEV tokens. You can get DEV tokens for testing on Moonbase Alpha once every 24 hours from the Moonbase Alpha Faucet

Create a Proposal

The first step to get your mintable XC-20 registered on Moonbeam is to create a proposal. The creator-role of the asset will need to submit a deposit. The deposit for each network is as follows:

MoonbeamMoonriverMoonbase Alpha

10000 GLMR

100 MOVR

100 DEV

To get started, head to Polkadot.js Apps and make sure you're connected to Moonbase Alpha. Then click on Governance at the top of the page and then select Democracy from the dropdown. Then you can select + Submit preimage and take the following steps:

1. Select the account you want to create the proposal with
2. From the propose dropdown, choose assetManager
3. Then select the registerLocalAsset extrinsic
4. Enter the address of the creator
5. Enter the address of the owner
6. Set isSufficient. If set to true, it can be transferred to another account without a native token balance
7. Set the minBalance
8. Copy the preimage hash as you'll need it in the following steps
9. Click on + Submit preimage

Once the preimage has been created and submitted, then you'll need to actually submit the proposal. To do so, you can click on + Submit proposal and take the following steps:

1. Select the account you want to create the proposal with
2. Paste in the preimage hash, which you should have copied beforehand. If you did not copy the hash, you can choose Developer from the top of the page, then Chain State from the dropdown, and then query the preimages extrinsic. Make sure that the include option slider is toggled off and submit the query
3. Optionally, you can update the deposit as you see fit
4. Click on + Submit proposal

You'll be prompted to submit and sign the proposal, and once you do so you'll see that the proposal appear under the proposals section of the Democracy page.

Your proposal will then be subject to democracy and on-chain governance, please check out the Governance documentation page to find out more information on how governance works on Moonbeam.

Set Asset Metadata

Once the proposal is approved and enacted, the account you specified as the owner can set the metadata for the asset. The metadata includes the asset name, symbol, and decimals. There is a deposit required to set the metadata, it is as follows for each of the networks:

MoonbeamMoonriverMoonbase Alpha

10.68 GLMR base fee + (0.01 GLMR x number of bytes stored)

1.0068 MOVR base fee + (0.0001 MOVR x number of bytes stored)

1.0068 DEV base fee + (0.0001 DEV x number of bytes stored)

To set the asset metadata, you'll need to retrieve the asset ID. Once you have it, click on Developer at the top of the page and then select Extrinsics from the dropdown. From there, you can take the following steps:

1. Select the owners account
2. From the submit the following extrinsic dropdown, choose localAssets
3. Then select the setMetadata extrinsic
4. Enter the asset ID
5. Enter the name for the asset
6. Set the symbol for the asset
7. Set the decimals for the asset. This doesn't have to be 18 decimals like the Moonbeam native assets, it's completely configurable
8. Click on Submit Transaction

You can use the Extrinsics page to perform other functions such as minting tokens, delegating a team, freeze and thaw assets or accounts, and more.

Interact with Mintable XC-20 Specific Functions Using Remix

As previously mentioned, this section of the guide will only cover interacting with the mintable XC-20 specific functions available for the token contract owner or the designated accounts with special roles. If you simply want to interact with a mintable XC-20 through the standard ERC-20 interface, please refer to the Interact with the Precompile Using Remix section of the XC-20 precompile page.

First, you will need to add the LocalAsset interface to Remix. Then you can take the following steps:

1. Get a copy of LocalAsset.sol
2. Paste the file contents into a Remix file named ILocalAsset.sol

Once you have the interface loaded in Remix, you will need to compile it:

1. Click on the Compile tab, second from top
2. Compile the ILocalAsset.sol file

If the interface was compiled successfully, you will see a green checkmark next to the Compile tab.

Instead of deploying the precompile, you will access the interface given the address of the XC-20 precompile:

1. Click on the Deploy and Run tab directly below the Compile tab in Remix. Please note the precompiled contract is already deployed
2. Make sure Injected Web3 is selected in the ENVIRONMENT dropdown. Once you select Injected Web3, you might be prompted by MetaMask to connect your account to Remix
3. Make sure the correct account is displayed under ACCOUNT
4. Ensure ILocalAsset - ILocalAsset.sol is selected in the CONTRACT dropdown. Since this is a precompiled contract, there is no need to deploy any code. Instead you are going to provide the address of the precompile in the At Address field
5. Provide the address of the XC-20 precompile calculated in the Calculate Precompile Address section, 0xFFFFFFFE6D1492E39F1674F65A6F600B4589ABD7, and click At Address

Note

Optionally, you can checksum the XC-20 precompile address by going to your search engine of choice and searching for a tool to checksum the address. Once the address has been checksummed, you can use it in the At Address field instead.

The precompile for the mintable XC-20 will appear in the list of Deployed Contracts. Now you can feel free to call any of the available functions.

Last update: September 22, 2023
| Created: May 12, 2022