Airdrops are now flocking in on EOS mainchain. One of the latest is CET (Chaince Token), dropped a few days ago.
Behind this is the Chaince Exchange, which focuses on EOS and related airdrops, and as this seems to be the first airdrop with immediate use for me i decided to take a closer look.
Currently they list EOS/BTC, EOS/ETH and EOS/CET pairs, with CET at some 0,05$ so not bad in sort of dividend income.
1) What is Chaince?
First of all, it's a centralised exchange like so many, with an explicit focus on EOS. It is registered on Cayman islands, but offices, or at least the core team, seems to be in somewhere in China, maybe Hong Kong or Beijing.
For any trading or portfolio actions, they require the standard KYC procedure, with registration of ones identity card. I can't say much else, as this seems pretty new, and the only real source of information about their activities is their own website:
https://chaince.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
2) What is the CET token?
As you might have seen, the airdrop is based on the genesis snapshot, and has a conversion rate of 1:1. The token is used for trading fees, similar to Binance where it is 50%.
Trading fees are 0.2% which is okay, but still above the 0.1% charged by Binance. Using the CET token, this should drop to 0.1%. For withdrawals there are extra fees. See here for the full overview:
https://chaince.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004450333-Service-fees
Additionally it is possible to freeze CET tokens, and withdraw EOS for the corresponding amount:
Every holder of CET Tokens can freeze the CET tokens on the Chaince trading platform and withdraw the corresponding EOS from the Foundation address. The EOS withdrawn can be normally withdrawn or traded while the frozen CET tokens cannot. When the amount of EOS in the foundation address increases due to the continuous injection of transaction fees by the trading platform, the holders of the frozen CET tokens can also continue to withdraw the corresponding growing EOS from the foundation address. If a user returns the extracted EOS to the Chaince platform, the corresponding frozen CET tokens will be unlocked, and the user can instantly withdraw or trade the CET tokens normally.
Not sure what this means exactly, but it seems you can generate a revenue stream by locking CET. I have no idea about the sense of this mechanism, and what the exchange's gain would be from frozen CET. I asked at their telegram channel, but at the time of writing the admin there wasn't able to explain that further. So looking forward to an update.
I haven't done thee kyc so no trading or deposits possible atm, i still would like to learn more about those guys, and the safety of their exchange, before handing my personal documents over to them, and then they are hacked.