Hi there!
I'm really new here in the crypto world. I discovered COINBASE three months ago more or less, thanks to a mate. So as you can imagine, everything related to the crypto world is really new for me. When I read some articles I can imagine more or less what is the idea behind it, but sometimes I can't understand it at all. So I have decided to try to understand it, and I have started to read some basics tutorials. Maybe there are people like me, that they don't understand either the basics, so I'm here to try to explain what I have learned. Let's start.
Crypto vs tokens
what is a cryptocurrency? what is a token? is it not the same? The answer is not the same. But sometimes the people tend to use the 'token' term to express the same idea. But they are really different. Cryptocurrency expresses value mainly, like a dollar or euro, and the token express utility, like a Netflix gift card or an Amazon gift card or iTunes gift card. With cryptocurrency, you can buy assets rightly and with the token, you can get services or get value from a specific company, but you can't use it outside of this company.
For instance, you can't buy a pizza with an amazon card at a restaurant, but you can buy it using euros, dollars, or bitcoins (if the restaurant accepts bitcoins of course). With an amazon card, you can get things from the amazon platform but you can't use it outside Amazon to pay with. You can exchange the amazon card for euros or bitcoins and then you can buy a pizza at the restaurant. So you are converting a utility token to get a valuable cryptocurrency before you use it. This is what the exchange markets are doing now in their platforms:
To sum up, what I understand, cryptocurrency is like real money and tokens do not. Tokens have a value of course, but when you exchange them for a cryptocurrency or coin: Dollar, Euro... to get the value.
Here is a list from Uphold with the main cryptocurrencies:
Here is a list from Uphold with the main tokens:
And that's everything up to now.
I hope this post can help you to understand a little bit what is the main difference between them.
You can write down your comments!
Thxs for reading me!
:)
