What is the difference between a token and a coin?
First, it is important to understand the difference between coins and tokens. Both are crypto currency, but if the coins (such as bitcoin, lightcoin, dogecoin) work on their own block, the tokens live on top of existing infrastructure, such as ether. Blocking the same is, in fact, a record of transactions protected by the network. Thus, the coins have their own independent transaction registers, and the tokens rely on the core network technology to verify and secure operations. As a result, koins are often used to transfer directly financial savings, and tokens carry much more functions - this contract is for almost anything: from physical objects and tickets to events to points of loyalty.
Tokens are often issued through crawside, known as the initial coin offering (ICO) in exchange for existing coins, which in turn finance projects such as gaming platforms or digital wallets. You can get public tokens after the end of the ICO, as well as buy coins, using the base currency to complete the purchase. Since now any person can create a token and run crowdsale, ICO are becoming more risky, because often creators take money from investors and run away, leaving the project. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) tries to control this process and seeks to use tokens as securities, which, like shares, will need to be regulated. SEC warns investors about the purchase of tokens launched in ICO without their own preliminary research. But, despite the fact that now cryptomarket is very volatile, experts believe that it will stabilize once more people accept this idea. In general, the very idea of crypto currency is in the public domain, but this does not mean that it is easy to understand. We present you the ways to create your own coins or tokens.
Create your own blockchain or make a fork of an existing
Both methods require quite a lot of technical knowledge or the help of an experienced developer. Since coins are based on blockchains, you will either have to build your blockchain, either take the existing one and tailor it to the new coin.
The first method will require serious programming skills, and even though there are already a lot of tutorials for step-by-step execution of this task, they assume a certain level of knowledge, and even if you do everything right, at the end you will not have a fully functioning coin .
Alternatively, you can do the fork of an existing blockchain by taking open source, which can be found, for example, in Github-Litecoin, making several changes and running a new blockchain with a new name. Again, this requires you to clearly identify the goals of the project and understand the code so that you know what you need to change and why. There are no universal technical solutions, everything is very individual.
Running a coin or token using a platform for creating crypto currency
This option is most suitable for an ordinary person - they will do all the technical work for you and bring your coin or token back. For example, CryptoLife actually creates the simplest coin, and all you need to do is enter the parameters: from the logo to the number of coins received for signing the block. They even have pre-built templates that only need to specify a name and a symbol. The base price of this service is 0.25 BTC, for which you will receive the source code of your coin in a few days.
WalletBuilders has a similar service, the price of which starts at 0.01 BTC, as well as a free test version.
You can also create a token - something that is essentially a smart contract - with or without a public ICO. Since tokens can represent any asset, you can even create a token that does not have a real value or serious purpose, except for exchanging between friends. It is faster, easier and cheaper to create coin, because it does not take time and effort to develop and support a new or branched blockchain. Instead, you rely on technology already used for bitcoin or ether.
If you want to take one more step to create a real value coin for a wider audience that you can get, buy or sell, but you do not have programming experience, you probably need the help of one or more developers. Even if you use the service to create your own currency, you need to support it - it will not be cheap and safe.
Not so terrible technical question, as it is painted
Nevertheless, the technical creation of crypto currency is not really the most difficult part of launching a successful crypto project. The biggest difficulty is in presenting your coin, its symbolic value, building the infrastructure, supporting it and persuading others to buy. After all, even with such memetic coins as Garlicoin, Dogecoin and PepeCoin, there are developers and user communities that support the stability of these projects. In addition, to date, many crypto currency are unsuccessful, even doubtful, from a legal point of view, because no qualitative ICO was conducted or the coin failed to provide long-term interest. No wonder that the term shitcoin arose, and it seems that it does not intend to disappear. Therefore, before deciding on such a responsible step - launching your own crypto currency - it is worth several times to weigh the pros and cons, determine the purpose of its creation, develop an action plan and conduct market analysis so that eventually your currency does not become another shit.