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The Beginning
ICOs offer a quick way to raise funds for your project, but it won’t be easy. To successfully start a new cryptocurrency via an ICO, here is what you’ll need:

A ‘big idea’ — how will your blockchain project help a specific industry? What problem will it solve?
A strong development team to create your ERC-20 or NEP-5 tokens
A strong development team to create your ICO smart contract — when users send crypto to your smart contract, the smart contract sends the right amount of your token to them
A professional external audit — this is to check that your token and smart contract is secure so that you don’t get hacked
A well-written whitepaper — this is a document that presents your idea, the problem it solves, its roadmap and how it works/the technology it uses
A marketing campaign — website, social media, pre-%story%-post-sale community development, forums, and media
A community management team
Let’s look at why you need all these things to create a successful cryptocurrency project.

The Big Idea of How to Create a Cryptocurrency
This is the center of your project! You need to think about how your dApp will help in the industry you’re targeting. Are you planning to remove a current middleman (like a bank or a broker)? Are you looking to solve real-world problems (such as poverty or lack of education)?

You need to think about a real problem and how blockchain technology can solve it. If your project has no real benefit, then why will anyone want to invest or use it? If you want to create value, you must add value.

Here are some industries that might get your brain flowing with ideas: File Storage, Content Services, Insurance, Marketing Peer-to-Peer Communications, Finance, Medical and Energy/Electricity. All of these industries can be helped massively using blockchain technology via dApps.

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The Development Team
One of the biggest parts of how to create a cryptocurrency is choosing the right developer(s) for your token and smart contract can be the difference between success and failure. You must be very careful and choose a developer that you can trust to do a good job.

The idea is the first key factor, but it’s useless without a good team. You need a talented team to help bring your idea to life! I would recommend only hiring people with years of experience working with blockchain technology.

To make the contacts you need, you should aim to become more involved in the blockchain community. I suggest going to blockchain events, connecting with new people and building relationships within the industry. This will help you to find the right people to join your project!

Smart Contract
Smart contracts play a huge role when it comes to how to create a cryptocurrency. For those who don’t know what a smart contract is, let me briefly explain:

A smart contract is like a traditional contract; except it is digital, runs on the blockchain, is executed automatically, and cannot be changed.

Smart contract visualization

Inside a smart contract, rules are written. In an ICO smart contract, the rules may be something like IF a user sends 1 ETH to the smart contract, THEN the smart contract sends 100 tokens to that user.

Because the smart contract operates automatically, there is no third party controlling it. This means the user does not have to trust you.

Instead, they trust the smart contract, which is just code. If the code is correct, it cannot cheat you. So, the user knows they will always be paid the right number of tokens and that they will receive them on time.

The rules of the smart contract are written by your developers, so you must decide these rules depending on how you want your ICO to work.

For more on smart contracts, see my What is a Smart Contract guide.

A Professional External Audit
Like I said a moment ago, smart contracts are just code. This is the same for tokens. Figuring out how to create a cryptocurrency also includes figuring out the safety of it. So, for a user to trust the code, they need to know it is secure. This is why you need a professional audit.

Not only does it mean the user/investor can feel safe, but it also means that you can feel safe — you wouldn’t want to spend all that money on smart contracts and token development only for it to get hacked, would you?

It is an important step that brings legitimacy to your project. These audits are often referred to as ICO security audits, and you can get them from companies like Practical Assurance. Always ensure that the audit company you choose is credible and has a long history.

Getting your ICO verified with a professional audit will help promote your cryptocurrency project. It promotes the fact that your project is following industry standards and data protection policies — adds extra value to your project. It’s a crucial step!

Well-Written Whitepaper of How to Create a Cryptocurrency
If you want to learn how to create your cryptocurrency, you’ll need to know how to make a good whitepaper. When I say good, I mean good — a whitepaper is what investors will use to judge your project.

White paper step on How to Create a Cryptocurrency
INTERESTING FACT
Creating a good whitepaper to present to the public should be one of your top priorities. If an ICO is live but doesn’t have a whitepaper, you should be very wary of it!

So, let’s look at what makes a brilliant ICO whitepaper. According to VentureBeat research, a whitepaper should follow this format:

All whitepapers should be in PDF format – PDF white papers are accessible on different systems and browsers without worrying about format/structure and layout problems.
Page count – all white papers must have two versions. A regular whitepaper (20-100 pages) and a lite paper (around 2-8 pages). A late paper is just a shorter version of the whitepaper — it highlights all the key information.
Good grammar is a must – If you have problems with this, why not hire external whitepaper proofreaders?
Languages — your whitepaper should be in multiple languages. Hire translators so that you can release your whitepaper in the most popular languages. I recommend English, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. If you can do more, go for it!
Answer the following questions:
What is your idea?
Why is your idea/solution needed?
What are the ICO funds going to be used for?
When will the tokens be released so that they can be traded and listed on exchanges?
When will the project be completed? (Show a detailed timeline of the steps you will take from ICO to project a success!)
Who are your team? What have they done in the past? How are they qualified for the job?