Coin
The coin is a cryptocurrency that has a financial system, tokenomics, vision, and blockchain (if it is a coin, but not a ”token”). It is a kind of a digital unit of value that is used to exchange, transfer, and receive money. The users can obtain the coin from the cryptocurrency exchange markets, DeFi platforms, decentralized peer-to-peer networks, etc. It is also possible to earn a coin by working as a ”validator” on the relevant blockchain. For instance, you can get block rewards, ie, coins by mining BTC on the Bitcoin blockchain, or get SOL by staking your own assets on the Solana blockchain.
What Are The Functions of Coins?
Cryptocurrencies or coins can be used for all your financial transactions in the digital world. You can pay your monthly rent with them, buy food for your cat from an e-commerce site, or loan money to your sister. In addition to these, coins are also very advantageous to access the decentralized finance world and benefit from peer-to-peer transactions and evaluating income options such as yield farming and staking. Unlike decentralized fiat currencies, coins provide anonymity, and transparency, lower transaction fees, and faster transactions.
Coin vs. Token: What’s The Difference?
Even though they seem similar, coins and tokens are very different. One of the important differences between these two is the blockchain factor. Cryptocurrencies have their own blockchain, and they are part of it as an asset. While tokens can serve as utility functions, they are built on an existing blockchain such as Ethereum.
What Was the First Coin?
The first coin is the Bitcoin which launched in January 2009. Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.
After Bitcoin, there were new coins created. These new coins, also known as altcoins, used their own blockchain from scratch or were made with the chain split method from an existing blockchain. These forks are still called coins because they split their wat from the main blockchain and their blockchains operate independently.
Learn more about altcoins.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
Initial Coin Offering is a method of getting funds for building new coin projects. Startups choose this method to increase the interest of possible investors and create a fund to develop the function & network of the project. ICOs are planned months in advance and investors follow popular ICOs with a variety of countdown tools. Because buying the cryptocurrency of a project that is valued in the future at the ICO level can provide a great advantage.
Learn more about ICOs.