Chapter 3 - Making money

In this chapter we implement a token for our DAO. This is an essential step to make our project economically sustainable. A mistake commonly made when creating a DAO is to believe that having a token is enough to guarantee a solid business strategy and consistent income for the organization - this is not the case.

Introduction

Creating and distributing a token is an essential step in any DAO. A token enables the creation of a market, enabling investors to invest in the DAO, community members to receive rewards for their contributions, and usually facilitates governance by allowing token holders to vote on key decisions and initiatives. Today, your mission, is to implement the code for a token.

On the Internet Computer, we can create a token by creating a canister that stores balances and manage transfer. Assuming the canister is not controlled we can consider the token to be safe, trustless and decentralized. In this project you will implement the code for a simple token. If you are interested in learning more about tokens, you can read the ICRC_1 standard.

Resources

To complete this Chapter, we suggest browsing the following resources:

• Option module
• Principal module

Tasks

1. Define the ledger variable. This variable will be used to store the balance of each user. The keys are of type Principal and the values of type Nat. You can use the HashMap or TrieMap types to implement this variable.
2. Implement the tokenName function, this function takes no parameters and returns the name of your token as a Text.

Choose any name you want for your token.

3. Implement the tokenSymbol function, this function takes no parameters and returns the symbol of your token as a Text.

Choose a symbol that is exactly 3 characters in length.

4. Implement the mint function. This function takes a Principal and a Nat as arguments. It adds the Nat to the balance of the given Principal. You will use the Result type for your return value.
5. Implement the burn function. This function takes a Principal and a Nat as arguments. It subtracts the Nat from the balance of the given Principal. You will use the Result type for your return value.
6. Implement the transfer function. This function takes a Principal representing the sender (from), a Principal representing the recipient (to), and a Nat value for the amount to be transferred. It transfers the specified amount of tokens from the sender's account to the recipient's account. You will use the Result type for your return value.
7. Implement the balanceOf query function. This function takes a Principal as an argument and returns the balance of the given account as a Nat. It should return 0 if the account does not exist in the ledger variable.
8. Implement the totalSupply query function. This function takes no parameters and returns the total supply of your token as a Nat. The total supply is calculated by adding together the balances of every user stored in the ledger variable.
9. Complete Chapter 3 by deploying your canister and submitting your ID on motokobootcamp.com.

To deploy your application run dfx deploy --playground chapter_3.

Video

⚠️ Please be aware: the repository displayed in the video may not match the one you're working with, due to recent updates we've made to the repository which have not been reflected in the video. However, the core code should remain similar.