There’s no article on this site about provably fair gaming, crypto casinos and verifiable gambling that doesn’t make at least one reference to Bitcoin, or one of the other dozens of cryptocurrencies. These virtual assets have taken over the world and are making a lot of noise especially as the world is going through a bit of a health crisis. Our question today is simple: is there a way that I, a simple human being, maybe a trader, or an online gamer, can make my own cryptocurrency?

The simple answer is yes, sure you can. Although don’t be fooled by the “yes” here, as there’s a lot of work you’ll need to put into the thing before you can say that “here, take some of my cryptocurrency, play some games or buy some nice headphones” to the world. The good news is, you don’t have to be a crypto programmer to do this. The entire nature of the crypto universe is open-source, meaning even the uninitiated can still go ahead and make themselves a coin.

First step: Where do I start?

Blockchains are not just mediums where you can buy or sell Bitcoins or other existing currencies like the Bitcoin. They can also be the networks where you can create your own new cryptocurrency. You can do this out of pure curiosity, or as a joke, but also as a reason for trade, for actual use of it by you and other interested people. There are blockchains where you can do this, with places like Ethereum, EOS, Waves, NEM, Nxt, Komodo, IOTA, TRON, Cardano, Bitshares, and the list could go on forever.

You can even go one step further than this and create your very own blockchain, for all we know. This would mean you know how to create a blockchain in the first place. But for the sake of this piece, we’ll stick with how you can create a cryptocurrency, not an entire network. The blockchain creation approach is a tad more technical and needs you to do some in-depth research and training before anything, like acquiring programming skills and other key points.

Second step: What do I need more exactly?

If you’re going to open up a new crypto coin just for the heck of it, you can do it on one of the many platforms that offer this service. It’s not much to it really, just a little work and you’re done. You’ll be required to fill in the name of the coin, how much you need and some more details, and, before you know it, there’s your very own cryptocurrency. Huzzah!

If you’re a little more pretentious, this is what you can do: find some open-source code from a preexisting currency. You can find most of them on GitHub. As soon as you have the code, you can read through it and understand it the best you can. Once you do this, you will be able to change the code the way you want, thus making your currency exactly the way you want it.

We’re still in the “beginner” phase here, so if you want to go a layer deeper, consider starting your very own blockchain, a completely new distributed ledger for a new cryptocurrency. This is hard, sure, but it gives you complete freedom over your terms. You can do whatever you want with your coins, as many as you want, as well as whatever you want with the ledger itself, its features and operations. There are also blockchain codes out there for you to modify.

Keep this in mind if you’re really set upon opening an entire blockchain on your own, not just creating a new currency: the entire thing you might be able to copy most of its code from somewhere else, but the stakeholders and the ecosystem? No, that can’t be copied. You’ll need to raise capital, shareholders, funds, create a functioning ecosystem and all of the fun stuff before you can make it work. If the new currency is not verified by anyone else but yourself, there’s no value in it. Once you find your first few investors, things start to light up.

Third step: All too hard? No worries!

If everything that we’ve talked about thus far is Chinese to you, don’t despair: you can still get your very own cryptocurrency. As demand for these blockchain-based services rose, firms and services that offer cryptocurrency-related services, such as blockchain creation or cryptocurrency creation, have also come into existence in spades. Different solutions are available for different needs.

These businesses, called BaaS or Blockchain as a Service, can help you with your very own blockchain, or your very own virtual coin. Some of the more popular companies offering these services are Blockstream, AWS or Amazon Web Services, Chainzilla, LeewayHertz, Chainmakers, Microsoft Azure, the IBM Blockchain, and a handful more.

While these companies can really help you with setting up the basics without going through the entire process of learning everything on your own, get ready for tons more challenges. You’re not done. You’ve not even started yet. Growing and maintaining a successful project such as a new blockchain or cryptocurrency is extremely hard. Launching it, growing it, expanding it, these are all though elements that make up a successful product.

Yet, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t try to create your own virtual coin, or distributed ledger, if this is what you want. And not just create them but also invest in marketing, sales, network, coding and many more in order to make your idea and creation into a viable product available to the world. There’s no stopping you in this world of blockchain technology, daily innovation and endless possibilities.

Ready to change the world?

So there you have it! That’s what you need to know about how to start creating your very own virtual coin. It might not be the size of Bitcoin, Ethereum or the other giants but still, with the proper set of rules in place, who’s to say you can’t invent the very next big thing in the world of crypto exchange and blockchain technology? All it takes is a clear vision, a purpose and solving a real problem with your coin. The rest is just hard work, implementing, trial and error, and then presenting your unique product to the entire world.