Elrond develops a high-performance, scalable and secure blockchain platform that unites decentralized applications (DApps) into a single network. In this article, we will talk about the ESDT standard that Elrond developed for creating tokens based on the platform.

What is ESDT?

Elrond Standard Digital Token (ESDT) is a general standard of the Elrond blockchain platform for developers who issue their tokens. Each independent developer can create a smart contract (SC) in the Elrond blockchain and issue new tokens, or do without smart contracts and a virtual machine (WASM). The latter, for example, is impossible in the Ethereum blockchain. All ERC-20 tokens are governed by Ethereum smart contracts, which performance is lacking by modern standards.

The Elrond network is divided into shards that can conduct transactions among themselves. This means that inter-shard interaction will also be available for user tokens, since the protocol will support ESDT transaction processing mechanisms.

The platform guarantees that user tokens will be as fast as $eGLD. Developers will be able to fully use the main principle of the Elrond platform, known as Speed, Cost & Scalability.
ESDT properties

Users who keep $eGLD in their wallet can also own an unlimited number of ESDT tokens, which will be an addition to the main cryptocurrency of the Elrond platform. What features will be available to token holders:

• Minting new tokens after their initial release, increasing the supply;
• Burning – every user can burn a certain number of their tokens, thus limiting the supply;
• Pausing/unpausing all operations except minting and burning of ESDT tokens;
• Freezing - every user can freeze a separate account, blocking any incoming and outgoing transactions;
• Wiping – the destruction of tokens. The owner can completely wipe the frozen account permanently;
• Transferring ownership - the owner can assign another ESDT account as the tokens' owner;
• Upgrading – the ability to change the properties of the tokens, add and remove properties.

But the main feature of ESDT is that the same functionality is available both to individual Elrond wallets and token creators' smart contracts. This means that both SCs creators and users can mint, freeze, and burn tokens. You may start creating your own token on a public testnet right away!

This article describes the basic ESDT features for ordinary users. If you want to learn more about Elrond, you can access the detailed documentation from the Elrond developers via this link. 

Everstake

Twitter    Telegram     Discord     Youtube    Website    Medium