Build a token or a coin with the steps and costs below. When it's ready, or while it's in presale, list it on Coinvote at no cost.
Updated UTC
Creating a cryptocurrency today usually means deploying a token on a chain that already exists. It takes an afternoon and costs little in network fees. Building a coin with its own blockchain is a far bigger job. This guide covers both, what each step really costs, and what to do once the token exists.
A coin is the native asset of its own blockchain: BTC on Bitcoin, ETH on Ethereum, SOL on Solana. It pays the network's fees and the network depends on it. A token is a contract or a record on someone else's chain. It inherits that chain's security and wallets, and its holders pay fees in the chain's coin.
People search for "how to make a crypto coin" but most of them want a token. Unless your project needs its own network rules, start with a token.
| Token on an existing chain | Coin on your own blockchain | |
|---|---|---|
| What you build | One contract (ERC-20 and similar) or one mint (Solana) | A whole network: nodes, consensus, explorer, wallets, bridges |
| Who secures it | The host chain | Your validators, or a sequencer if you build a rollup |
| Skills needed | Basic tooling, ideally a Solidity or Rust developer to review | A protocol engineering team and people to run the infrastructure |
| Network fee to create it | Well under a dollar on the day we measured (see the costs section) | No fixed fee: the cost is people and servers over time |
| Trading | Any DEX on the chain, once you add liquidity | Needs a bridge or its own DEX and exchange support first |
| Makes sense for | Communities, apps, games, meme coins, most projects | Projects whose product needs its own fee market or rules |
Nobody starts from an empty file any more. The Cosmos SDK describes itself as a modular framework for building blockchains; with it, you recruit and coordinate your own validators. The OP Stack lets you launch a chain on top of Ethereum: its documentation has operators deploy the L1 contracts, spin up a sequencer and run the full stack of services. Either way you take on an ongoing operations job, so budget for engineers before anything else. We won't quote a price, because the honest answer depends on your team.
Pick the chain where your likely holders already keep a wallet. Fees matter less than they used to: all four chains below were cheap on the day we measured. What differs is audience, tools and which DEX your token ends up on.
| Chain | Token standard | Language and tools | Where liquidity usually goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | ERC-20 | Solidity, Remix, Hardhat, Foundry | Uniswap |
| Base | ERC-20 | Same as Ethereum | Uniswap and other Base DEXs |
| BNB Chain | BEP-20 (ERC-20 compatible) | Same as Ethereum | PancakeSwap |
| Solana | SPL token or Token-2022 | spl-token command line; no custom contract needed | Raydium and other Solana DEXs |
One thing that catches newcomers: on Solana you usually don't write code at all. The token program already exists and your token is a new mint on it. On Ethereum, Base and BNB Chain, every token is its own deployed contract.
The steps are the same whichever tool you choose. Run them on a test network first (Sepolia on Ethereum, devnet on Solana). It costs nothing and shows up mistakes while they are still harmless.
Name, ticker, total supply, decimals, and whether more tokens can ever be created. Search the name on recent listings and on the block explorer: copying an existing ticker looks like a scam even when it isn't one.
Use a fresh wallet for deployment, funded with only what the deployment needs. For a project with a team, move control to a multisig afterwards so that one stolen key can't take everything.
OpenZeppelin's Contracts Wizard generates a standard ERC-20 from the options you tick, and you then compile it with a tool like Remix, Hardhat or Foundry. Every option you add (mint, pause, blacklist, tax) is something buyers will have to trust you with, so leave out what you don't need.
With the Solana command line tools, spl-token create-token creates the mint, spl-token create-account makes an account to hold it, and spl-token mint issues the supply. Name, ticker and logo are added as metadata, through the Metaplex program or the Token-2022 metadata extension.
Deploy, then publish the source on the block explorer. As ethereum.org puts it, verification assures users that the published code is the code running at that address. An unverified contract is the first thing a careful buyer walks away from.
On Solana, spl-token authorize with mint --disable removes the mint authority for good. The token docs are clear that it is irreversible, and that removing the freeze authority is permanent too. On EVM chains, a contract without a mint function has a fixed supply from the start; renouncing ownership is the equivalent step when other owner rights exist. Do it only once you're certain.
Token ready, or presale coming up? Your project page is free to create.
List your coin freeA token nobody can trade is just a number in a wallet. To make it tradable on a DEX you create a liquidity pool, depositing your token alongside something people already value, usually the chain's coin or a stablecoin.
Here's a worked example of the math, not a recommendation. Put 5 SOL and 100 million tokens in a constant-product pool, and one buyer spending 1 SOL takes out about 16.7 million tokens and moves the price up by about 44%, before fees. Small pools swing hard in both directions, so a single seller can do the same damage on the way down. There is no correct amount: it depends on what you can afford to lose.
When you add liquidity you receive LP tokens, which let you pull it back out. That's the mechanism behind a rug pull. A liquidity lock puts the LP tokens in a timed contract, and burning them makes the removal impossible forever. Services such as Team Finance and UNCX offer locks; on Raydium, the Burn & Earn pattern locks the LP while the creator keeps collecting fees. Lock contracts are code too, so look at the terms and the track record before you use one, and publish the lock link so anyone can check it.
Tokenomics is simply who gets how many tokens, and when. There is no magic split. What matters is that a stranger can check it in a few minutes.
Many token disasters come from a small set of mistakes. Go through these before you ask anyone to buy.
We measured these on 5 November 2026 at about 10:13 UTC, on public network nodes, for a plain fixed-supply token built on OpenZeppelin Contracts 5.6 (563,756 gas). Dollar values use CoinGecko prices at the same moment: ETH $2,417, BNB $716, SOL $96.84. This is a snapshot, not a quote. Gas moves, and a contract with more features costs more.
| Step | Measured or published cost | In dollars that day |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy on Ethereum | 0.0000409 ETH at 0.0725 gwei | about $0.10 |
| Deploy on Base | 0.0000034 ETH at 0.006 gwei, L1 data fee included | under $0.01 |
| Deploy on BNB Chain | 0.0000282 BNB at 0.05 gwei | about $0.02 |
| Mint and first token account on Solana | 0.0010668 + 0.00148844 SOL rent, plus signature fees | about $0.25 |
| Raydium standard pool | about 0.19 SOL (Raydium's fee table) | about $18 |
| Liquidity | Whatever you deposit. Usually the largest amount by far. | your choice |
| Liquidity lock | Depends on the service. Team Finance lists pay-as-you-go services from $50 per use. | check on the day |
| Audit and legal advice | Quoted case by case | ask for a quote |
| Coinvote listing | Free | $0 |
Solana token metadata adds its own rent, and Metaplex charges protocol fees on some instructions and says the amounts may change, so read its fee page before budgeting. Be wary of "token creator" sites whose charge dwarfs these numbers: you are paying for convenience, and you should check who ends up holding the authorities.
"Launch" is the part most guides skip. A workable order looks like this:
A website, official social accounts that link to each other, the contract address published in one place, and a plain explanation of what the token is for.
A presale, a fair launch or a direct DEX listing. The next section compares them.
Announce the contract address only from your official accounts, and warn people about look-alikes.
Create your free Coinvote page, which accepts tokens already trading as well as presales. The listing guide goes through what the form asks for.
Regular updates, honest answers and visible progress do more than launch day. Silence after launch is what makes people sell.
In a presale, people buy before the token trades, usually through a contract with set phases. It can fund the work, but you're now holding other people's money against a promise, and that is where legal duties tend to start. A fair launch has no early allocation: everyone buys from the same starting point once trading opens. There's less to explain, but no money up front, and bots can buy in the first moments.
You can list either on Coinvote, and live sales also appear among our crypto presales.
Nobody finds a new token by accident. Start with the free channels:
The form takes about 15 minutes and you only sign in when you send it.
List your coin freeThis is general information, not legal advice. Rules depend on where you and your buyers are, and on how the token is sold. Talk to a lawyer before you sell anything to the public.
Knowing how these work helps you stay clear of them, and spot anyone offering them to you as a service.
For most people it means creating a token on an existing chain: choose a chain, generate a standard contract or a Solana mint, test it on a test network, deploy it, verify the source, add liquidity and lock it. Building a coin with its own blockchain takes a technical team and ongoing infrastructure.
The network fee for a plain token is tiny: on 5 November 2026 we measured about 10 cents on Ethereum, under a cent on Base, about 2 cents on BNB Chain and about 25 cents on Solana. Liquidity is the real cost, and you decide its size. Audits, legal advice and locks are extra.
A coin is the native asset of its own blockchain and pays that network's fees. A token lives on a chain that already exists and relies on that chain's security. Most new projects are tokens.
Yes for a basic token. OpenZeppelin's Contracts Wizard writes a standard contract for you, and on Solana the spl-token command line needs no contract at all. Have someone who can read the code look at anything beyond the basics.
Prepare your site and official accounts, choose a presale or a fair launch, add liquidity to a DEX, lock it and publish the proof, then list the project and keep your community updated. Announce the contract address only from your official accounts.
Creating one is generally not the hard part: selling it to the public is where rules apply. In the EU, MiCA can require a white paper and a legal entity. In the US, how a token is sold and what you promise can make it an investment contract. Get legal advice for your own case.
Yes. Coinvote takes live tokens, presales and fair launches at no cost, and a presale without a deployed contract can add its address later.
The form takes about 15 minutes. You sign in only when you send it.
List your coin freeListings are submitted by project teams and ranked by community votes. This is not financial advice: new tokens are high risk, always do your own research.