How to create a cryptocurrency token for free in under 10 minutes

8 min readMar 18, 2019

This is a guide for creating your own cryptocurrency token on any OS. For the purposes of this tutorial, I will only be putting my token on a test network but I will also show how to put it on the Main Ethereum Network. Although your token will not be worth anything, it will still be transferable through MetaMask. Note - make sure you are using Google Chrome for this tutorial.

Step 1

First you will need to create a MetaMask account. Go to this link and follow along until you have the chrome extension with something like this (below) when you click on it. You will need to create an account and write down a 10 word signature that will be used to log in to your account.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn

Step 2

Before we get into creating the token, you will need to keep these things in mind. You will need to choose:

The Token’s Name (E.g. TutorialToken)
The Token’s Symbol (Usually 3 or 4 letters. E.g. TUT)
The Token’s Decimal Places (This will show how many decimal places each coin can be divided into. For example, Bitcoin has 14 decimal places. For this I am just going to use 1)
The Number of Tokens in Circulation (E.g. 100,000)

Step 3

You will first need to acquire some test ethereum for the Gas Fee. The Gas Fee is essentially a fee for using their blockchain to transfer your tokens. Go to this website and request at least 1 Ethereum from the faucet. https://faucet.metamask.io/

Now, go to the website: https://remix.ethereum.org

Press the (+) button at the top left of the screen to create a new file. Name it whatever you want but keep the .sol at the end.

Then, paste this code in the editor.

pragma solidity ^0.4.4;contract Token {/// @return total amount of tokens
 function totalSupply() constant returns (uint256 supply) {}/// @param _owner The address from which the balance will be retrieved
 /// @return The balance
 function balanceOf(address _owner) constant returns (uint256 balance) {}/// @notice send `_value` token to `_to` from `msg.sender`
 /// @param _to The address of the recipient
 /// @param _value The amount of token to be transferred
 /// @return Whether the transfer was successful or not
 function transfer(address _to, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {}/// @notice send `_value` token to `_to` from `_from` on the condition it is approved by `_from`
 /// @param _from The address of the sender
 /// @param _to The address of the recipient
 /// @param _value The amount of token to be transferred
 /// @return Whether the transfer was successful or not
 function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {}/// @notice `msg.sender` approves `_addr` to spend `_value` tokens
 /// @param _spender The address of the account able to transfer the tokens
 /// @param _value The amount of wei to be approved for transfer
 /// @return Whether the approval was successful or not
 function approve(address _spender, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {}/// @param _owner The address of the account owning tokens
 /// @param _spender The address of the account able to transfer the tokens
 /// @return Amount of remaining tokens allowed to spent
 function allowance(address _owner, address _spender) constant returns (uint256 remaining) {}event Transfer(address indexed _from, address indexed _to, uint256 _value);
 event Approval(address indexed _owner, address indexed _spender, uint256 _value);
 
}contract StandardToken is Token {function transfer(address _to, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {
 //Default assumes totalSupply can’t be over max (2²⁵⁶ — 1).
 //If your token leaves out totalSupply and can issue more tokens as time goes on, you need to check if it doesn’t wrap.
 //Replace the if with this one instead.
 //if (balances[msg.sender] >= _value && balances[_to] + _value > balances[_to]) {
 if (balances[msg.sender] >= _value && _value > 0) {
 balances[msg.sender] -= _value;
 balances[_to] += _value;
 Transfer(msg.sender, _to, _value);
 return true;
 } else { return false; }
 }function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {
 //same as above. Replace this line with the following if you want to protect against wrapping uints.
 //if (balances[_from] >= _value && allowed[_from][msg.sender] >= _value && balances[_to] + _value > balances[_to]) {
 if (balances[_from] >= _value && allowed[_from][msg.sender] >= _value && _value > 0) {
 balances[_to] += _value;
 balances[_from] -= _value;
 allowed[_from][msg.sender] -= _value;
 Transfer(_from, _to, _value);
 return true;
 } else { return false; }
 }function balanceOf(address _owner) constant returns (uint256 balance) {
 return balances[_owner];
 }function approve(address _spender, uint256 _value) returns (bool success) {
 allowed[msg.sender][_spender] = _value;
 Approval(msg.sender, _spender, _value);
 return true;
 }function allowance(address _owner, address _spender) constant returns (uint256 remaining) {
 return allowed[_owner][_spender];
 }mapping (address => uint256) balances;
 mapping (address => mapping (address => uint256)) allowed;
 uint256 public totalSupply;
}//name this contract whatever you’d like
contract ERC20Token is StandardToken {function () {
 //if ether is sent to this address, send it back.
 throw;
 }/* Public variables of the token *//*
 NOTE:
 The following variables are OPTIONAL vanities. One does not have to include them.
 They allow one to customise the token contract & in no way influences the core functionality.
 Some wallets/interfaces might not even bother to look at this information.
 */
 string public name; //fancy name: eg Simon Bucks
 uint8 public decimals; //How many decimals to show. ie. There could 1000 base units with 3 decimals. Meaning 0.980 SBX = 980 base units. It’s like comparing 1 wei to 1 ether.
 string public symbol; //An identifier: eg SBX
 string public version = ‘H1.0’; //human 0.1 standard. Just an arbitrary versioning scheme.//
// CHANGE THESE VALUES FOR YOUR TOKEN
////make sure this function name matches the contract name above. So if you’re token is called TutorialToken, make sure the //contract name above is also TutorialToken instead of ERC20Tokenfunction ERC20Token(
 ) {
 balances[msg.sender] = NUMBER_OF_TOKENS_HERE; // Give the creator all initial tokens (100000 for example)
 totalSupply = NUMBER_OF_TOKENS_HERE; // Update total supply (100000 for example)
 name = “NAME OF YOUR TOKEN HERE”; // Set the name for display purposes
 decimals = 0; // Amount of decimals for display purposes
 symbol = “SYM”; // Set the symbol for display purposes
 }/* Approves and then calls the receiving contract */
 function approveAndCall(address _spender, uint256 _value, bytes _extraData) returns (bool success) {
 allowed[msg.sender][_spender] = _value;
 Approval(msg.sender, _spender, _value);//call the receiveApproval function on the contract you want to be notified. This crafts the function signature manually so one doesn’t have to include a contract in here just for this.
 //receiveApproval(address _from, uint256 _value, address _tokenContract, bytes _extraData)
 //it is assumed that when does this that the call *should* succeed, otherwise one would use vanilla approve instead.
 if(!_spender.call(bytes4(bytes32(sha3(“receiveApproval(address,uint256,address,bytes)”))), msg.sender, _value, this, _extraData)) { throw; }
 return true;
 }
}

Now, find where is says // CHANGE THESE VALUES FOR YOUR TOKEN.

Replace all the values with what you thought of earlier.

balances[msg.sender] = TOTAL_NUMBER_OF_TOKENS_HERE; 
 totalSupply = TOTAL_NUMBER_OF_TOKENS_HERE;
 name = “NAME OF YOUR TOKEN HERE”; 
 decimals = 0; 
 symbol = “SYM”;

Now all the code is finished, you are able to start actually putting your token on the test net. First of all, make sure you are on the Ropsten test network. Below shows how to switch from Ethereum to Ropsten.

Make sure all your settings match up with this under the RUN tab:

Switch to the COMPILER tab and then switch to the 0.4.24 commit version of the complier. DO NOT USE THE NIGHTLY VERSION. Also make sure Auto compile is on and Enable Optimization is off.

Now, switch back to the RUN tab and select TOKEN.

Then press Deploy and you should be almost done! A pop-up will come up asking if you want to confirm the action, press confirm. Don’t worry if it says 0 ethereum being transferred, that is intentional.

Next you will need to press on the MetaMask icon in your extensions tab and press on Contract Deployment. Then press on View On Etherscan.

Then copy the contract ID highlighted below.

Go back to MetaMask and press menu, then Add Token.

Add all the data for your token. The contract address is the ID that you just copied.

And you’re done! You now have the full amount of token accredited to your account. It is now able to be sent to anyone else using MetaMask and some other wallets.

Step 4 (Optional)

As a final step, you can put the token on the main Ethereum network, making it an official token. The downside to this is that you have to pay around 30 USD to do it. All you need to do is repeat step 3 but be on the Main Ethereum Network instead of the Ropsten Network.

Conclusion

This was a tutorial on how to make a cryptocurrency token on the Ethereum Network. If you have any errors, comment them and I will try to help debug. Just to be clear, this is not a Cryptocurrency. To actually make a crypto, you have to have a blockchain and that is a lot harder to make. But this is a good starting step if you want to start getting into blockchain and cryptocurrencies.