Fungible Tokens (FTs)

Fungible Tokens (FTs) are tokens that are interchangeable with each other. They are identical in specification and value. For example, if you have 10 FTs, and someone else has 10 FTs, you are both holding the same thing. The same way as 1 dollar equals to another 1 dollar. They have the same properties as money:

• Can be split into smaller parts, 10 dollars = 10 * 1 dollar, 1 dollar = 100 cents
• Can be transferred to someone else
• Can be used to pay for goods and services, or as rewards for doing something

Examples of FTs:

• $NEAR is used to pay for transaction fees, storage, can be earned by staking and by developing an app that people use (part of transaction fees goes to the app owner and the rest is burned)
• $USDC and $USDT are stablecoins, they always cost 1 US dollar, and are used to transfer money between people and to pay for goods and services without worrying about the price volatility
• $REF is a token of the Ref Finance exchange, it’s used to reward liquidity providers (people who give money to the exchange) in REF tokens, and give REF token holders a share of the exchange’s fees
• $LiNEAR is a token that represents staked NEAR, that preserves both the staking rewards and the ability to use your money for other purposes
• $BLACKDRAGON is a memecoin that doesn’t have a particular use case as of yet, but some people like it and buy it for fun

If you see something like “NEP-141 token” on some website, don’t worry about a scary name, NEP-141 is a technical standard for FTs on NEAR, all FTs on NEAR are NEP-141¹ tokens.

How to get tokens

• Buy them on an online exchange or from someone who has them
• Earn them by doing something that the project rewards with tokens
• Mint them yourself, if the project allows it. “Minting” means creating new tokens and putting them into circulation. Some projects allow you to mint tokens for free, some require you to pay for it or to do something else in exchange for the tokens
• Create your own token. You can create a new token on NEAR, decide how many tokens there will be, what they will be called, and what they will be used for, add it to an exchange, and sell it to people, but you will have to convince people that your token is worth something

More about “earn”

Every project has its own way of rewarding people with tokens. Here are some of the most common ways projects reward people with tokens:

• Staking - you lock your tokens for a certain period of time and get rewards for doing so. If the token you want to earn has staking, you can find more details on the project’s website because it’s different for each project. From the list above, NEAR and REF have staking
• Providing liquidity - you give your tokens to an exchange, and in return you get a share of the exchange’s fees. Every token that is listed on an exchange can be used to provide liquidity, but the amount of fees you get depends on the token trading volume
• Liquidity mining - In addition to exchange’s fees, sometimes you can get additional tokens as an incentive, if the project wants to attract more liquidity. Usually, liquidity mining is temporary, since projects have a specific budget for the incentives, but new programs can be announced at any time
• Airdrops - some projects give away tokens for free to people who have a certain token, NFT, to people who used their product in the past, or to people who are active in the NEAR ecosystem. Follow the project’s social media and announcements to find out about future airdrops. Sometimes they are announced in advance, sometimes they are given to people who are already using the project, these are called “retroactive airdrops” or “retrodrops”
• Bounties - you do something that the project needs, and in return you get tokens. For example, you can write an article, a twitter thread, make a video, or help with the development of the project. Bounties are usually announced on the project’s website or social media. There are platforms like Heroes.build that aggregate bounties from different projects
• Referral programs - you invite people to use the project, and in return you get a share of the project’s fees or a one-time reward
• Trading - you buy tokens for a lower price and sell them for a higher price on an exchange. This is the riskiest way to earn tokens, because you can’t predict the future price of the token, and you always pay fees to the exchange. But if you closely follow the project and the market, or know something that most people don’t, you can increase your chances of earning tokens this way

Fees

Storage fee

When it’s your first time interacting with a token, you might need to pay a fee to receive it. This is because the token balances are stored in a smart contract, and the smart contract needs to store the information about your balance. This fee is usually small, 0.01-0.10 NEAR for most coins.

If you’re sending someone a token, and they don’t have a balance of that token, you may also be charged this fee. This is because the smart contract needs to store the information about their balance anyway, or the transaction will simply fail.

Transfer fees

Some tokens, especially memecoins, have a fee for every transaction. This makes it more expensive to trade them too often, and the fee is usually either burned, given to the project’s treasury, or distributed to the token holders. You should always check the token’s website or the exchange’s website to find out about the fees, because they are different for each token and exchange.

Creating your own token

If you want to create your own token, there are 2 main ways to do it:

1. Use a platform that allows you to create tokens without coding
2. Write a smart contract of your token

The first way is easier, but the second way gives you more control over the token. In this book, we will cover the first way, because it’s easier and more accessible. There are 2 popular platforms:

• Token farm (creates tokens with format <token-name>.tkn.near) - once it was the most popular way to create tokens, but now it’s not actively maintained and can’t be used, as connecting a wallet simply doesn’t work. Maybe it’ll be fixed soon.
• Jump DeFi Token Laboratory - a platform by Jump DeFi that allows you to create tokens with format <token-name>.laboratory.jumpfinance.near. There’s an instruction on the Jump DeFi page.