BNB Chain's CAS20 Token Creation Depends on Activation Switches

BNB Chain is preparing CAS20, a proposed standard for stablecoins and tokenized assets that would place compliance controls in shared network code while requiring separate activation before issuers can create tokens.

BNB Smart Chain plans to deploy Jenner to its Chapel testnet at 10:30 p.m. ET Oct. 28 (02:30 UTC Oct. 29). BEP-702 remains in draft form. Installing the upgrade alone would not enable CAS20 token creation.

CAS20 would have Asset and Stablecoin variants. Network governance would appoint an activation administrator with three independent switches: one for creating each variant and one for making changes to the shared PolicyRegistry. All three would start disabled. Issuers would need the relevant creation switch enabled before launching a CAS20 token.

Those switches govern token creation, not the minting of additional units by a token that already exists. Turning off a creation switch would prevent further launches of that variant while leaving existing CAS20 tokens in operation. An existing token could continue to mint under its own permissions.

After creation, a token's administrators could assign minting, burning, seizure, pausing and resuming powers to different operators. They could choose policies for senders, recipients and other participants in a transaction. Administrators of shared lists would manage the addresses on them. If several assets use one list, a membership change could affect holders across those assets.

Turning off PolicyRegistry writes would freeze more than list membership. It would also block the creation of policies and changes to administrators, while policies already in place would remain effective. A restricted holder could stay subject to an existing policy until writes resume or an authorized token administrator selects a different existing policy.

By default, no holder would be eligible for seizure. Moving a balance without its holder's consent would require an authorized seizure operator and a policy that makes the holder eligible. The move would leave total token supply unchanged. An ordinary-transfer pause does not itself stop seizure operations.

Existing BEP-20 tokens would continue operating under the proposal. Shared network code would give CAS20 issuers a common set of controls, though a defect in that code could affect multiple assets and require another hard fork.

A count of BNB Chain's real-world asset holders listed 2,019,217 wallet addresses in a dashboard reading accessed Oct. 10. That figure counts addresses, not individual investors.

BNB Chain is targeting late November for the mainnet upgrade, with no exact time set.