How To Make Your Own ERC-20 Token

Have your dollar coins lost their shine has the buying power in your countries currency withered over time? What has your bank done for you lately? As interest rates continue to reduce, making it harder to save each month and get a return.

These are issues not only consumers face, but businesses too as the legacy payment system and options aren't fit for the digital age.

These are just some of the questions being asked by millennials today and while they ask they choose to migrate their money slowly. The younger generation continues to move their money away from their bank accounts towards digital wallets such as Venmo, Revolut, WeChat Pay, and even crypto exchange wallets.

• Why is this happening?
• Again, ask yourself "what has my bank done for you lately?

Old money just wasn't built to last, and we're starting to see the growing pains and limitations of fiat money. They indeed weren't made for the internet, but cryptocurrencies are native to the internet. Now, a new growing trend has begun to emerge, if you open your Revolut, Square and PayPal account you will find cryptocurrencies all colourful and shiny begging to be bought. And, you can bet more services will be adding crypto too.

Coins aren't a 2017 thing; they are a generational thing.

Whatever you want to call them, digital assets, crypto or tokens, there is a growing realisation that all businesses will need them. At the heart of these changes is blockchain strategy, and more companies are looking at its benefits. These forward-thinking companies realise they have offered their customers new options such as an inbuilt crypto wallet and crypto access will be empowering both customer and business alike.

There are many reasons you may want to consider creating a currency, and the benefits it brings are near limitless. Suppose you're thinking about creating a token for your business or community. In that case, one of the easiest ways to do or even experiment with the concept is to use the popular Ethereum blockchain.

The first step

The most straightforward way to start a coin is to use the ERC-20 standard, there are others, but Ethereum is the most widely used, and you are going to want your coin universally compatible with as many services as possible. This will make sharing and marketing 100x easier than starting from scratch.

If you do not know what an ERC-20 protocol is, no problem: it is just a system for creating new coins on the Ethereum blockchain and once on the blockchain your coin will be easy to send and receive by anyone. First, you got to come up with a name for your token.

You will require a long-form name (such as "Bitcoin") and a shorthand name or symbol (BTC, in Bitcoin's case). You will need to specify the supply and decimal places, more on how to do this later.

The second step

Putting your coin onto a blockchain, this step can be tricky, but for simplicity sake, it can be much more secure and faster to use a coin factory type service that allows you to pump out coins on the fly such as CoinFactory or Togen. Better yet creating the coin with HollaEx Kit will include an exchange within the package which you'll probably need for your coin later anyway.

Once you've picked your coin creation service, all you need to do is input your coin information mentioned in step one, and the service will put it on the blockchain for you.

There might be a small blockchain fee that applies in the range of $5-$20, which is a normal registration type fee.

The third step

Now that your cryptocurrency is live on the blockchain, you should have a unique contract on Etherscan which is like the search engine website for coins built on Ethereum. Your coin service provider should provide you with the unique URL and contract, which is just a string of text to identify your coin.

You should test your coin by sending some and receiving them. Just get a friend to download an ERC-20 compatible wallet (MetaMask) and send some coins to them and ask them to send it back to you. Keep in mind; you will require ETH in your wallets for fees for doing transactions.

Lastly, you will need to get the coin listed on an exchange, coins without a place to buy them will become worthless. Getting the coin listed on an exchange is the most challenging part of the process, so having your own exchange is the most efficient way to go.

Summing up

Creating a cryptocurrency is relatively straightforward. The hard part is getting your coin valued and priced, which will require a crypto exchange. Everything else can be done in a matter of minutes.

Once you've got your coin on an exchange, the real business can begin. A whole new world of business possibilities is open when your coin is used in your business. Use cases such as voting or shared ownership in the business; the possibilities are endless.

The secret to a successful coin is to provide multiple use cases for the coin and have it freely available to others to buy and sell at will. This means managing the coin which is a whole another area, keep in mind that the longer the coin survives and the more use cases the coin has, the more shiny and valuable the coin becomes in the eyes of the holder.

About the author

Luke Fitzpatrick has been published in a variety of publications such as Forbes, Tech In Asia and The Next Web. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Sydney, lecturing in Cross-Cultural Management and the Pre-MBA Program.

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on cryptocurrency and blockchain.

• Why Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Is The Future Of Money
• 24 Ways To Earn Cryptocurrency
• How To Pay Tax On Cryptocurrency In South Africa
• How To Buy Bitcoin In South Africa
• Why Does Your Bitcoin Wallet Address Keep Changing?
• How To Tokenise Your Art & Sell It For Cryptocurrency

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.

Tags: ERC-20 , Token, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Guest Post