Token
An abstraction, a symbol that stands for some reality such as an asset (or measures of) or access to a process.
The blockchain technology has the unique property to implement digital scarcity, which is a fundamental requirement for a token.
Types of tokens
Thus, various types of tokens have been implemented.
Types
Fungible Are replaceable.
- Currency: they serve as a unit of account, a store of value (traditional view, see more on our interpretations of value) and a medium of exchange
- Utility: they provide (limited) access to a process / service, including to governance.
Non-fungible Are not replaceable.
- NFT: they attest ownership rights over an asset.
Ethereum token types
ERC-20 - A token standard for fungible token, in other words, they have a property that makes each Token be exactly the same (in type and value) of another Token. It provides functionalities such as transferring tokens from one account to another, getting the current token balance of an account and also the total supply of the token available on the network. Besides these, it also has some other functionalities such as approving an amount of tokens that can be spent by a third party account.
ERC-721 - A free, open standard that describes how to build non-fungible or unique tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. While most tokens are fungible (every token is the same as every other token), ERC-721 tokens are all unique. Think of them like rare, one-of-a-kind collectables.
ERC-998- An extension to the ERC-721 standard that adds the ability for non-fungible tokens to own other non-fungible tokens and ERC-20 tokens. Non-fungible tokens that implement ERC998 also implement the ERC-721 standard.
ERC-1155 - A novel token standard that aims to take the best from previous standards to create a fungibility-agnostic and gas-efficient token contract. A single deployed contract may include any combination of fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens or other configurations (e.g. semi-fungible tokens).