Access Gate

Create passes (NFTs) that prove someone may use something of yours: a download, an API, an app, a members' area or encrypted files. Ownership is checked on-chain, so there is no account system to run. Gate owners create and manage gates in the console at sui-access-gate.meddleware.co.uk, or in the Access Gate tab of the dashboard.

This page describes the tool on Sui testnet. Getting started says which networks are live.

What it is

An access gate is an on-chain object with a price and a set of rules. Anyone can buy a pass (an NFT) from it, and holding a valid pass is the proof of access. Passes can be unlimited (a membership) or single-use (spent a use at a time), and optionally soulbound (impossible to transfer).

There are two roles:

• Gate owners create and manage gates: set the price, give passes away, pause sales, freeze the gate.
• Pass holders buy a pass and use it to reach whatever the gate protects.

The console is for gate owners. A buyer purchases in whichever app or page the gate owner points to. For example, the Walrus Storage app sells the pass for Meddleware's upload relay.

When to use it

• You want to sell access: a paid community, premium content, a members' area.
• You want to gate a service or app behind pass ownership. The service must check passes itself (a developer task: see below).
• You want to gate encrypted content: combine it with Sealed Storage, where a pass becomes the key.
• You want tickets or memberships represented as NFTs.

How a purchase works

1. The buyer pays the gate's price in SUI, plus network gas.
2. The payment is split on-chain, in the same transaction: a commission to the platform treasury and the rest to the gate's payment recipient (the gate owner, or whoever the owner named). Any overpayment is refunded.
3. The buyer receives the pass NFT.

The gate owner does not have to approve or co-sign a purchase, and a purchase either happens completely or not at all.

Unlimited and single-use passes

• An unlimited pass is an ongoing membership. Using it does not consume it.
• A single-use pass carries a number of uses (the console also calls them credits). The holder spends one by approving an on-chain "use" transaction, which leaves a verifiable record the service can check. Nobody else can spend your pass.

When a single-use pass reaches zero uses, the gate owner's auto-burn setting decides whether it is deleted or kept as a spent receipt. A spent pass cannot grant access either way.

Soulbound passes

A soulbound pass cannot be transferred, not even by its holder. Use it when access should stay with one wallet and not be resold. If the holder loses the wallet, the pass is gone with it. The rule is enforced by the contract. Whether a gate's passes are soulbound is chosen when the gate is created and cannot change.

What it costs

The platform takes a commission on each sale, at current defaults 0.2% of the price, but never less than 0.0005 SUI and never more than 10%, so a paid pass costs at least 0.005 SUI. Creating a paid gate is free apart from network gas. A free gate (price 0) pays a one-off platform fee, currently 1 SUI. Giving passes away (an airdrop) pays the commission a sale would have paid. See Fees for all the figures and who receives them. The terms are held in a shared on-chain setting, and a gate owner sets only the price.

Pausing and freezing

• Pause stops new purchases for a while. It does not take back passes already sold.
• Freeze makes the gate permanent: its settings and airdrops can never be changed again. Purchases and uses carry on. This cannot be undone.

For developers

To make your own service check passes, or to run a gateway that puts any web service behind a gate, see the Access Gate integration guide on the developer site.

Next

• Walkthrough: create and manage a gate; buy and use a pass.
• Reference: settings, fees, rules and the messages you may see.