Should You Revoke Freeze Authority on Your Solana Token?

The Solana blockchain has experienced a resurgence and has become quite popular in the world of cryptocurrency for launching new tokens. It allows you to create standard tokens called SPL tokens that are native to the Solana blockchain. However, it comes with its own technology and framework, and authorities are an important concept you should understand. In this article, we will look at the freeze authority, why it's important to revoke the freeze authority to ensure your token is both secure and easy to use.

Explaining SPL Tokens and Authorities

SPL tokens are tokens on the Solana blockchain that follow the standard protocol akin to ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. They can be used for different types of assets, like utility tokens, stablecoins, or tokenized real-world assets. When you create an SPL token, you can choose who has control over its mechanics. This includes the ability to mint more quantity of the tokens, freeze them, and more. These are called authorities.

The freeze authority is an authority that enables the freeze or unfreeze of wallets to trade in that particular token. When a wallet is frozen, it is unable to send or receive tokens until it is unfrozen by the freeze authority. This feature is designed to give you significant control over a token's operation.

Why It's Crucial to Revoke Freeze Authority

Although the freeze authority can have valid use cases, like stopping suspicious actions, for most projects it's recommended to remove the freeze authority once your token is in use. Here are the some of the important reasons:

Decentralization and Trustlessness:

Having a freeze authority goes against the core principles of decentralization and trustlessness that are essential to blockchain technology. It creates a central controlling authority and may affect the credibility and popularity of the token in the eyes of investors.

Liquidity and Trading Disruption:

When your token is listed on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Raydium, you need to create a liquidity pool account.  If there is an unexpected freeze, whether intentional or accidental, say on the pool account, it can cause complete disruptions in the liquidity pool and ability for anyone to buy and sell. This can result in financial losses for all the investors and hence investors would shy away from your token if it has a valid freeze authority. The freeze authority hence creates risks for the liquidity providers and traders, affecting liquidity and potentially causing trading disruptions.

Potential for Scams and Abuse:

There is a risk of scams and abuse exploiting the freeze authority to commit a variety of fraudulent activities. For example, freeze the accounts having good token holdings permanently, or even temporarily freeze all the big accounts to sell their own share while no one else can sell the tokens. By removing the freeze authority, you eliminate this vulnerability and give your token holders confidence that their funds will be safe from such abuse.

Mandatory Requirement for DEX Listings:

DEX Listings Requirement: Several DEXs, like Raydium, as a result of the factors listed above, require SPL tokens to have their freeze authority removed prior to being listed and traded. This promotes the protection and safety of the token trading. If the freeze authority is not revoked, it can prevent the token from gaining liquidity and adoption on these platforms.

How to Revoke Freeze Authority

You can remove the freeze authority on your Solana token in two ways:

During Token Creation: When creating a token, you can choose to set the freeze authority to null. By doing this, you can create your token without any restrictions right from the start, which means you won't have to worry about revoking it later on.

After Token Creation: If your token was created with a freeze authority, you have the option to remove it by changing the authority to null. This process requires a separate transaction with appropriate instructions.

Best Practices and Recommendations

For the best security, trust, and adoption of your Solana token, it's a good idea to create your token without a freeze authority right from the start. This way you do not get flagged by some of the scan and analysis tools. And this even removes the necessity for an extra transaction for changing the freeze authority and additional charges for gas etc that are incurred with the extra transaction. You have to be cautious while using available Solana Token Creators as they often misguide them into first creating the token with freeze authority and then charging extra platform fee for revoking freeze authorities. When it comes to selecting a token creator tool, it's important to go for trustworthy and transparent platforms like Solr Network. Such platforms keep developer interests in mind and do not mislead them into creating tokens with unnecessary permissions in the first place. Insist on revoking freeze authorities during token creation, by  doing this, you can create a token that embodies the values of decentralization and trustlessness. This builds trust among your investors and helps your token grow and succeed.

In summary, revoking the freeze authority from your Solana token is an important way to demonstrate investor friendliness and safeguard tokens' security, liquidity, and adoption. It is important to grasp the significance of the freeze authority and adhere to recommended practices of revoking it during token creation itself. Make sure to select a reliable Solana Token Creator for creating tokens and always prioritize the long-term success and integrity of your token.