What is an Ethereum token?

What is an Ethereum token?(blockgeeks.com)

53 points by PetrolMan 8 years ago

eco 8 years ago |

The short version is just that it's an ethereum contract/program that implements the ERC20 interface:

    function totalSupply() constant returns (uint totalSupply);
    function balanceOf(address _owner) constant returns (uint balance);
    function transfer(address _to, uint _value) returns (bool success);
    function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint _value) returns (bool success);
    function approve(address _spender, uint _value) returns (bool success);
    function allowance(address _owner, address _spender) constant returns (uint remaining);
    event Transfer(address indexed _from, address indexed _to, uint _value);
    event Approval(address indexed _owner, address indexed _spender, uint _value);

How the tokens are distributed and what owners of them are allowed to do with them is where things get interesting, of course.

jameskegel 8 years ago | |

After yesterday's death hoax, and the decline in the market the last 18 hours, it's pretty interesting indeed. Oddly though, AEON, a small fork of upcoming currency Monero (XMR), has remained mostly stable, and I was mostly unaffected as most of my holdings are/were in AEON at that time in trading. I was able to use AEON that had technically risen in value to scoop up coins on the rise like SiaCoin (SC) and more Monero (XMR).

Good night overall. I'm still skeptical of ETH, however.

eyezick 8 years ago |

Ethereum tokens are just variables defined in a smart contract, except the way the variables are managed has a community accepted standard.

They're not transferrable in the way ETH is between accounts; the original Token smart contract account just moves internal balances between accounts.

Which is really what ETH does at a higher level anyway, lol.

superfreek 8 years ago |

Looking fast through it, this seems like an amazing article. Sending it directly into my reading list for the week.

GoodAdmiral 8 years ago |

A good definition could be: "An Ethereum token is something that goes up in value, as soon as it hits the exchanges".

dajohnson89 8 years ago | |

I was gonna say, "Something that has lost 40% of its value in the past week."

function totalSupply() constant returns (uint totalSupply); function balanceOf(address _owner) constant returns (uint balance); function transfer(address _to, uint _value) returns (bool success); function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint _value) returns (bool success); function approve(address _spender, uint _value) returns (bool success); function allowance(address _owner, address _spender) constant returns (uint remaining); event Transfer(address indexed _from, address indexed _to, uint _value); event Approval(address indexed _owner, address indexed _spender, uint _value);