- When you hear about cryptos,
it's likely a reference to Bitcoin or Ethereum,
and for good reason too.
In 2021, although there were an estimated
15,000 cryptos in circulation,
Bitcoin and Ethereum's combined market cap
was 60% of the entire crypto market.
The other 14,000 or so altcoins made up the remaining 40%.
Bitcoin's role is so outsized that its price movement,
up or down, typically causes a corresponding movement
across the whole crypto market.
There's no guarantee this wide gap will be sustained.
Many of the cryptos are merging,
such as Binance coin, Tether, Solano, and Cardano.
In addition, Bitcoin or Ethereum
maintains sufficient volatility
such that their lead could collapse at a moment's notice.
It's notable though that there's currently enough interest,
innovation, and space for so many altcoins to emerge
and coexist.
It's unlikely that such a high number will be sustained
in the long term.
Just how many remains to be seen.
One of the reasons why so many altcoins exist
is that they're so easy to create.
Bitcoin, for example, is built as open-source software,
which means that anyone can take the original code,
modify it, and use it as they see fit.
Open-source blockchains can also be hard-forked,
which means a new blockchain can be created
from an existing live crypto,
thus creating a completely new altcoin.
Cryptos can also be easily created to run on top
of existing blockchains.
Why might you want to create your own cryptocurrency?
Imagine the bragging rights.
Imagine the power.
Your crypto could emerge as a favorite,
bringing you fame and fortune.
You'd get to define the monetary policy for your currency.
For example, you might have a cap
on the total number of cryptos that could be issued
and you could choose your own consensus mechanism.
As you can imagine, with the ease of creating cryptos,
there are plenty of scams.
Be careful and do your research.
A more substantive reason to create a cryptocurrency
is in support of a particular function.
For example, the crypto called XRP supports RippleNet
for real time clearing and settlement
of financial transactions.
The network includes over 300 institutions
across 40 countries.
Other examples include the use of the crypto Ether
as the payment system to enable
the Ethereum application platform,
and the crypto Polkadot that facilitates interoperability
among different blockchains.
I'll return now to the topic of how you can create
your own cryptocurrency.
The harder way, subjectively,
is just to take the original Bitcoin open-source code
and then copy and modify it.
You can get the code from multiple repositories
including GitHub.
To make modifications to the code
will require programming skills.
And easier, although less flexible approach
to creating a new crypto is to use a third party service.
Many such as WalletBuilders and Cryptolife
have sprung up over the last few years.
Crypto tokens, a crypto that runs on an existing blockchain
such as Ethereum, EOS, and Tezos can be easily created
using a service such as rally.io or createmytoken.com.
These services tend to be less flexible
because you are limited to the capabilities they offer.
If you want to find a happy medium between flexibility
and less complexity,
another option is to use the Ethereum blockchain
to create your own crypto.
You'll need to acquire some technical skills,
but there are excellent support tools available.
The realization that creating your own cryptocurrency
is a possibility can be eyeopening.
But the technical work of creating a crypto
is by far the easiest part.
Maintaining and sustaining is exceptionally difficult.
And candidly, most will likely fail.
That said, perhaps it's the right path for you.
You never know, you could hit the jackpot.