Do-it-yourself cryptocurrency: quick money

The huge number of “coins” on the cryptocurrency market makes you wonder - how difficult is it to create your own token?

If we talk about the full creation of a bitcoin-level system, it will take more than one or two months. A team of far from entry-level programmers will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Testing, advertising, and placing cryptocurrency on trading platforms will also require time, effort and large financial costs. 

And in order for cryptocurrency to become truly interesting to the community and continue to develop, a beautiful name and the word blockchain in the description are not enough. Fortunately, the excitement in the market has died down somewhat and users have become more discerning. 

But a logical question arises: where do so many shitcoins come from (coins that appear and just as quickly disappear into oblivion). 

But here everything is much simpler. 

Cryptocurrencies began as open source software. On the one hand, this is always presented as a virtue, because all of you have probably heard the arguments “anyone can check the correctness of the code and the absence of vulnerabilities.” The statement is controversial for anyone who is familiar with programming languages ​​and has tried to read someone else’s source code at least once in their life, but in general it is true.

The other side of the coin is that it allows anyone to download the entire source code and use it in their developments. 

Public licenses usually have few restrictions. By making minimal changes, you can issue a token under your name. 

A striking example is the emergence of litecoin, dash and bitcoin cash: the authors of all these cryptocurrencies do not hide the origin of the source code. But the volume of changes that was required was very significant. For example, the developers of dash introduced an innovative mechanism to increase the anonymity of transactions and introduced instant payments that do not require confirmation by miners.

The authors of “shitcoins” do not strive for the long term. 

Usually their task is to obtain a certain number of coins through pre-mining, withdraw the token to several little-known exchanges and get easy money.. Support for such a “revolutionary” breakthrough cryptocurrency ends before it even begins, the source code is lost in the depths of github, and the token is remembered only by those who, due to inattention, lack of experience, or in the wake of a pump, bought new coins and cherish the hope that one day their rate will suddenly skyrocket to the moon. 

What do you need for this? 

Not much at all. An installed programming environment (usually comes out of the box with most Linux systems), minimal knowledge of languages ​​and source code suitable for the purpose. For example, here is link to the source code of bitcoin

Further in the source code, all references to the original cryptocurrency are replaced with a new big name (for example, replacing the word bitcoin with the fresh and sonorous vasya-coin). To maintain originality and freshness, some configuration parameters are changed: mining speed, the total number of coins that can be issued, and so on. Of course, the “creator” of such a cryptocurrency will be the last thing to think about introducing real changes - they require time, money and serious theoretical preparation. 

A repository is created with a new name, and the sources are loaded into it. A website is created based on ready-made templates, advertising benefits and innovations. After which the newly-minted blockchain messiah goes to the exchanges, offering his shiny new coin. 

Naturally, in reality this takes a little longer, but in general, the general path of a “shitcoin” is always similar to the described algorithm. Basis - the source code of the existing cryptocurrency, minimal changes, sale of tokens, discontinuation of support. 

The cost of such “development” comes down to the production of a primitive business card website, sometimes a small advertising company.  

With the advent of the Ethereum network and the ERC20 standard, making your own token has become even easier, but that’s a completely different story.