Do you want your own token? Who doesn’t? Here is how you can create your own token on the BitShares blockchain. This is called a “User Issued Asset” or UIA.
For this tutorial, I will be using the BitShares public testnet. I suggest you do the same. Just ask for some TEST tokens so that you can play around. I will also be using the command line based reference wallet that comes with BitShares Core, the cli_wallet.
Firstly, I must start my wallet and make sure it connects to a testnet node. I can then unlock my wallet, and as long as I have some TEST tokens to pay the fee, I can create my token. Here is the syntax:
create_asset <issuer> <symbol> <precision> <options> <bitasset_options> <send>
We will be replacing each of these <parameters> with a value. Let’s begin.
Issuer
This is normally you. You can use your account name or your account ID. This is who will sign the transaction, and also who will be responsible for issuing tokens.
Symbol
Give your token a name. Tokens with a 3 character symbol are expensive. 4 character names are less so, and 5 or more characters are the cheapest.
Precision
This is how many decimal places you want your token to have. Zero is valid, 8 is the maximum.
Options
This is some JSON text, where you specify many options. An example is below.
{
"max_supply" : 100000,
"market_fee_percent" : 30,
"max_market_fee" : 1000,
"issuer_permissions" : 1,
"core_exchange_rate" : {
"base": {
"amount": 21,
"asset_id": "1.3.0"
},
"quote": {
"amount": 76399,
"asset_id": "1.3.1"
}
},
"whitelist_authorities" : [],
"blacklist_authorities" : [],
"whitelist_markets" : [],
"blacklist_markets" : [],
"description" : "My New Token"
}
BitAsset Options
This is a special type of token, which I will not discuss here. Pass a ‘null’ in place of this parameter.
Send
This is the final parameter. It says that you would like to transmit this to the blockchain. Passing true here will process your request. Passing false will run what you sent through some checks to make sure it is valid, and then return you the results as if you had sent true.
Issuer Permissions
Notice the value of 1 in the field issuer_permissions above. For the desired value of issuer_permissions you will need to do a little math.
Start with 0. If you want to charge a fee when the token is traded on the exchange, add 1. If you want the asset to only be distributable to those in the white list, add 2. If you want the Issuer to be able to take back the token from any account, add 4. If you want the issuer to be the only entity that can transfer the token, add 8. If you do not want to give the token holders the ability to do blind transfers, add 40. Place the total in issuer_permissions. In the example above, we only want to charge a market fee. So the total is 1.
The Final Product
create_asset jmjatlanta4 JMJATLANTA 8 { "max_supply" : 100000, "market_fee_percent" : 30, "max_market_fee" : 1000, "issuer_permissions" : 1, "core_exchange_rate" : { "base": { "amount": 21, "asset_id": "1.3.0" }, "quote": { "amount": 76399, "asset_id": "1.3.1" } }, "whitelist_authorities" : [], "blacklist_authorities" : [], "whitelist_markets" : [], "blacklist_markets" : [], "description" : "My New Token" } null false
The above will create my new token JMJATLANTA that I can then give to whomever has an account on the BitShares blockchain.
Stay Tuned!
But what do all of those other bits of data mean? That will be the subject of my next post about User Issued Assets.