For everyone / Before you rely on any of it

Risks and current state

Live

If you read one page on this site, read this one. Nothing here is hedged - it is the list of things that could go wrong and what each would mean for you.

Where things stand

A testnet, with valueless coins, that can be wiped

  • One sequencer orders every transaction and can reorder or censor. If it halts, the chain halts for new execution.
  • The bridge messenger is a trusted key.
  • There is no forced inclusion, and there are no fraud or validity proofs. An independent replica can re-derive the chain from Ethereum and the data-availability layer and detect a divergence, but nothing arbitrates one yet.
  • Development keys are in use throughout, and they are published keys.
  • Test coins and test PKL have no monetary value and are not redeemable for anything.
  • Chain state may be reset without notice during Phase 0, which deletes balances, contracts and history.

The practical reading: this is a place to try things, not a place to keep anything. If the chain's state is reset, balances, contracts and history go with it - and that is a normal operation at this stage rather than a failure.

The operator

One party runs the process that decides the order transactions happen in. That means it can, in principle:

  • Reorder transactions, including putting its own ahead of yours.
  • Refuse your transaction. There is no mechanism that forces inclusion.
  • Halt the chain by stopping. Nothing else can produce blocks in its place.

There is no fraud proof and no validity proof, which in plain terms means: nobody can mathematically demonstrate to the network that the operator cheated. An independent copy of the chain can be rebuilt from the records posted to Ethereum, and it can detect a disagreement - but nothing settles one.

The bridge that moves funds between Ethereum and Pickle is gated on a single key. If that key is unavailable, withdrawals do not complete; if it is compromised, nothing on the network constrains it.

And in this phase the keys in use are publicly known development keys. That is appropriate for a testnet and it means exactly what it sounds like.

What is described but not built

Several of the things that make Pickle interesting to read about do not exist as running code. Each page says so where it applies, and collected here:

  • Buying and burning PKL from fees - designed. Nothing is running, and the share intended for it accumulates in the treasury.
  • A share of what applications earn - designed, with no contract and no address.
  • Staking - the contract exists, but no address is published to stake at.
  • The ABX claim - no snapshot, no list and no claim contract.
  • A single canonical PKL - the token is currently deployed independently on two chains with nothing keeping their totals consistent.

None of these is presented as imminent, and this site does not publish dates. A design can change materially, ship late, or not ship.

The likeliest way to lose money

Not a technical failure. The realistic risk today is someone taking advantage of the gap between what has been described and what exists.

Three rules that cover almost all of it

  • There is nothing to buy. No canonical PKL deployment exists. Anyone selling you PKL is not selling you what they say.
  • There is nothing to claim. No ABX snapshot, list or claim contract exists. Anything asking you to connect a wallet or pay a fee to secure an allocation is not this project.
  • Mainnet does not exist. Its identifier, 78271, is reserved and not live. Anything asking you to send real funds to a Pickle address today is a scam, whatever it claims to be.

The one address you can trust for what is real is picklechain.xyz. Everything first-party lives on that domain, and anything on another one is not this project - including domains that look almost right.