Create Tokens With The Token Program

Lesson Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Create token mints
Create token accounts
Mint tokens
Transfer tokens
Burn tokens

TL;DR

SPL-Tokens represent all non-native tokens on the Solana network. Both fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Solana are SPL-Tokens
The Token Program contains instructions for creating and interacting with SPL-Tokens
Token Mints are accounts which hold data about a specific Token, but do not hold Tokens
Token Accounts are used to hold Tokens of a specific Token Mint
Creating Token Mints and Token Accounts requires allocating rent in SOL. The rent for a Token Account can be refunded when the account is closed, however, Token Mints currently cannot be closed

Overview

The Token Program is one of many programs made available by the Solana Program Library (SPL). It contains instructions for creating and interacting with SPL-Tokens. These tokens represent all non-native (i.e. not SOL) tokens on the Solana network.

This lesson will focus on the basics of creating and managing a new SPL-Token using the Token Program:

Creating a new Token Mint
Creating Token Accounts
Minting
Transferring tokens from one holder to another
Burning tokens

We'll be approaching this from the client-side of the development process using the @solana/spl-token Javascript library.

Token Mint

To create a new SPL-Token you first have to create a Token Mint. A Token Mint is the account that holds data about a specific token.

As an example, let's look at USD Coin (USDC) on the Solana Explorer. USDC's Token Mint address is EPjFWdd5AufqSSqeM2qN1xzybapC8G4wEGGkZwyTDt1v. With the explorer, we can see the particular details about USDC's Token Mint such as the current supply of tokens, the addresses of the mint and freeze authorities, and the decimal precision of the token:

To create a new Token Mint, you need to send the right transaction instructions to the Token Program. To do this, we'll use the createMint function from @solana/spl-token.

const tokenMint = await createMint(
    connection,
    payer,
    mintAuthority,
    freezeAuthority,
    decimal
);

The createMint function returns the publicKey of the new token mint. This function requires the following arguments:

connection - the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer - the public key of the payer for the transaction
mintAuthority - the account which is authorized to do the actual minting of tokens from the token mint.
freezeAuthority - an account authorized to freeze the tokens in a token account. If freezing is not a desired attribute, the parameter can be set to null
decimals - specifies the desired decimal precision of the token

When creating a new mint from a script that has access to your secret key, you can simply use the createMint function. However, if you were to build a website to allow users to create a new token mint, you would need to do so with the user's secret key without making them expose it to the browser. In that case, you would want to build and submit a transaction with the right instructions.

Under the hood, the createMint function is simply creating a transaction that contains two instructions:

Create a new account
Initialize a new mint

This would look as follows:

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildCreateMintTransaction(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.PublicKey,
    decimals: number
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const lamports = await token.getMinimumBalanceForRentExemptMint(connection);
    const accountKeypair = web3.Keypair.generate();
    const programId = token.TOKEN_PROGRAM_ID

    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        web3.SystemProgram.createAccount({
            fromPubkey: payer,
            newAccountPubkey: accountKeypair.publicKey,
            space: token.MINT_SIZE,
            lamports,
            programId,
        }),
        token.createInitializeMintInstruction(
            accountKeypair.publicKey,
            decimals,
            payer,
            payer,
            programId
        )
    );

    return transaction
}

When manually building the instructions to create a new token mint, make sure you add the instructions for creating the account and initializing the mint to the same transaction. If you were to do each step in a separate transaction, it's theoretically possible for somebody else to take the account you create and initialize it for their own mint.

Rent and Rent Exemption

Note that the first line in the function body of the previous code snippet contains a call to getMinimumBalanceForRentExemptMint, the result of which is passed into the createAccount function. This is part of account initialization called rent exemption.

Until recently, all accounts on Solana were required to do one of the following to avoid being deallocated:

Pay rent at specific intervals
Deposit enough SOL upon initialization to be considered rent-exempt

Recently, the first option was done away with and it became a requirement to deposit enough SOL for rent exemption when initializing a new account.

In this case, we're creating a new account for a token mint so we use getMinimumBalanceForRentExemptMint from the @solana/spl-token library. However, this concept applies to all accounts and you can use the more generic getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption method on Connection for other accounts you may need to create.

Token Account

Before you can mint tokens (issue new supply), you need a Token Account to hold the newly issues tokens.

A Token Account holds tokens of a specific "mint" and has a specified "owner" of the account. Only the owner is authorized to decrease the Token Account balance (transfer, burn, etc.) while anyone can send tokens to the Token Account to increase its balance.

You can use the spl-token library's createAccount function to create the new Token Account:

const tokenAccount = await createAccount(
    connection,
    payer,
    mint,
    owner,
    keypair
);

The createAccount function returns the publicKey of the new token account. This function requires the following arguments:

connection - the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer - the account of the payer for the transaction
mint - the token mint that the new token account is associated with
owner - the account of the owner of the new token account
keypair - this is an optional parameter for specifying the new token account address. If no keypair is provided, the createAccount function defaults to a derivation from the associated mint and owner accounts.

Please note that this createAccount function is different from the createAccount function shown above when we looked under the hood of the createMint function. Previously we used the createAccount function on SystemProgram to return the instruction for creating all accounts. The createAccount function here is a helper function in the spl-token library that submits a transaction with two instructions. The first creates the account and the second initializes the account as a Token Account.

Like with creating a Token Mint, if we needed to build the transaction for createAccount manually we could duplicate what the function is doing under the hood:

Use getMint to retrieve the data associated with the mint
Use getAccountLenForMint to calculate the space needed for the token account
Use getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption to calculate the lamports needed for rent exemption
Create a new transaction using SystemProgram.createAccount and createInitializeAccountInstruction. Note that this createAccount is from @solana/web3.js and used to create a generic new account. The createInitializeAccountInstruction uses this new account to initialize the new token account

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildCreateTokenAccountTransaction(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.PublicKey,
    mint: web3.PublicKey
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const mintState = await token.getMint(connection, mint)
    const accountKeypair = await web3.Keypair.generate()
    const space = token.getAccountLenForMint(mintState);
    const lamports = await connection.getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption(space);
    const programId = token.TOKEN_PROGRAM_ID

    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        web3.SystemProgram.createAccount({
            fromPubkey: payer,
            newAccountPubkey: accountKeypair.publicKey,
            space,
            lamports,
            programId,
        }),
        token.createInitializeAccountInstruction(
            accountKeypair.publicKey,
            mint,
            payer,
            programId
        )
    );

    return transaction
}

Associated Token Account

An Associated Token Account is a Token Account where the address of the Token Account is derived using an owner's public key and a token mint. Associated Token Accounts provide a deterministic way to find the Token Account owned by a specific publicKey for a specific token mint. Most of the time you create a Token Account, you'll want it to be an Associated Token Account.

Similar to above, you can create an associated token account using the spl-token library's createAssociatedTokenAccount function.

const associatedTokenAccount = await createAssociatedTokenAccount(
    connection,
	payer,
	mint,
	owner,
);

This function returns the publicKey of the new associated token account and requires the following arguments:

connection - the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer - the account of the payer for the transaction
mint - the token mint that the new token account is associated with
owner - the account of the owner of the new token account

You can also use getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount to get the Token Account associated with a given address or create it if it doesn't exist. For example, if you were writing code to airdrop tokens to a given user, you'd likely use this function to ensure that the token account associated with the given user gets created if it doesn't already exist.

Under the hood, createAssociatedTokenAccount is doing two things:

Using getAssociatedTokenAddress to derive the associated token account address from the mint and owner
Building a transaction using instructions from createAssociatedTokenAccountInstruction

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildCreateAssociatedTokenAccountTransaction(
    payer: web3.PublicKey,
    mint: web3.PublicKey
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const associatedTokenAddress = await token.getAssociatedTokenAddress(mint, payer, false);

    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        token.createAssociatedTokenAccountInstruction(
            payer,
            associatedTokenAddress,
            payer,
            mint
        )
    )

    return transaction
}

Mint Tokens

Minting tokens is the process of issuing new tokens into circulation. When you mint tokens, you increase the supply of the token mint and deposit the newly minted tokens into a token account. Only the mint authority of a token mint is allowed to mint new tokens.

To mint tokens using the spl-token library, you can use the mintTo function.

const transactionSignature = await mintTo(
    connection,
    payer,
    mint,
    destination,
    authority,
    amount
);

The mintTo function returns a TransactionSignature that can be viewed on the Solana Explorer. The mintTo function requires the following arguments:

connection - the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer - the account of the payer for the transaction
mint - the token mint that the new token account is associated with
destination - the token account that tokens will be minted to
authority - the account authorized to mint tokens
amount - the raw amount of tokens to mint outside of decimals, e.g. if Scrooge Coin mint's decimals property was set to 2 then to get 1 full Scrooge Coin you would need to set this property to 100

It's not uncommon to update the mint authority on a token mint to null after the tokens have been minted. This would set a maximum supply and ensure no tokens can be minted in the future. Conversely, minting authority could be granted to a program so tokens could be automatically minted at regular intervals or according to programmable conditions.

Under the hood, the mintTo function simply creates a transaction with the instructions obtained from the createMintToInstruction function.

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildMintToTransaction(
    authority: web3.PublicKey,
    mint: web3.PublicKey,
    amount: number,
    destination: web3.PublicKey
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        token.createMintToInstruction(
            mint,
            destination,
            authority,
            amount
        )
    )

    return transaction
}

Transfer Tokens

SPL-Token transfers require both the sender and receiver to have token accounts for the mint of the tokens being transferred. The tokens are transferred from the sender’s token account to the receiver’s token account.

You can use getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount when obtaining the receiver's associated token account to ensure their token account exists before the transfer. Just remember that if the account doesn't exist already, this function will create it and the payer on the transaction will be debited the lamports required for the account creation.

Once you know the receiver's token account address, you transfer tokens using the spl-token library's transfer function.

const transactionSignature = await transfer(
    connection,
    payer,
    source,
    destination,
    owner,
    amount
)

The transfer function returns a TransactionSignature that can be viewed on the Solana Explorer. The transfer function requires the following arguments:

connection the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer the account of the payer for the transaction
source the token account sending tokens
destination the token account receiving tokens
owner the account of the owner of the source token account
amount the amount of tokens to transfer

Under the hood, the transfer function simply creates a transaction with the instructions obtained from the createTransferInstruction function:

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildTransferTransaction(
    source: web3.PublicKey,
    destination: web3.PublicKey,
    owner: web3.PublicKey,
    amount: number
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        token.createTransferInstruction(
            source,
            destination,
            owner,
            amount,
        )
    )

    return transaction
}

Burn Tokens

Burning tokens is the process of decreasing the token supply of a given token mint. Burning tokens removes them from the given token account and from broader circulation.

To burn tokens using the spl-token library, you use the burn function.

const transactionSignature = await burn(
    connection,
    payer,
    account,
    mint,
    owner,
    amount
)

The burn function returns a TransactionSignature that can be viewed on Solana Explorer. The TransactionSignature function requires the following arguments:

connection the JSON-RPC connection to the cluster
payer the account of the payer for the transaction
account the token account to burn tokens from
mint the token mint associated with the token account
owner the account of the owner of the token account
amount the amount of tokens to burn

Under the hood, the burn function creates a transaction with instructions obtained from the createBurnInstruction function:

import * as web3 from '@solana/web3'
import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

async function buildBurnTransaction(
    account: web3.PublicKey,
    mint: web3.PublicKey,
    owner: web3.PublicKey,
    amount: number
): Promise<web3.Transaction> {
    const transaction = new web3.Transaction().add(
        token.createBurnInstruction(
            account,
            mint,
            owner,
            amount
        )
    )

    return transaction
}

Demo

We’re going to create a script that interacts with instructions on the Token Program. We will create a Token Mint, create Token Accounts, mint tokens, transfer tokens, and burn tokens.

1. Basic scaffolding

Let’s start with some basic scaffolding. You’re welcome to set up your project however feels most appropriate for you, but we’ll be using a simple Typescript project with a dependency on the @solana/web3.js and @solana/spl-token packages.

You can use npx create-solana-client [INSERT_NAME_HERE] in the command line to clone the template we'll be starting from. Or you can manually clone the template here.

You'll then need to add a dependency on @solana/spl-token. From the command line inside the newly created directory, use the command npm install @solana/spl-token.

2. Create Token Mint

We'll be using the @solana/spl-token library, so let's start by importing it at the top of the file.

import * as token from '@solana/spl-token'

Next, declare a new function createNewMint with parameters connection, payer, mintAuthority, freezeAuthority, and decimals.

In the body of the function Import createMint from @solana/spl-token and then create a function to call createMint:

async function createNewMint(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.Keypair,
    mintAuthority: web3.PublicKey,
    freezeAuthority: web3.PublicKey,
    decimals: number
): Promise<web3.PublicKey> {

    const tokenMint = await token.createMint(
        connection,
        payer,
        mintAuthority,
        freezeAuthority,
        decimals
    );

    console.log(
        `Token Mint: https://explorer.solana.com/address/${tokenMint}?cluster=devnet`
    );

    return tokenMint;
}

With that function completed, call it from the body of main, setting user as the payer, mintAuthority, and freezeAuthority.

async function main() {
    const connection = new web3.Connection(web3.clusterApiUrl("devnet"))
    const user = await initializeKeypair(connection)

    const mint = await createNewMint(
        connection,
        user,
        user.publicKey,
        user.publicKey,
        2
    )
}

3. Create Token Account

Now that we've created the mint, lets create a new Token Account, specifying the user as the owner.

The createAccount function creates a new Token Account with the option to specify the address of the Token Account. Recall that if no address is provided, createAccount will default to using the associated token account derived using the mint and owner.

Alternatively, the function createAssociatedTokenAccount will also create an associated token account with the same address derived from the mint and owner public keys.

For our demo we’ll use thegetOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount function to create our token account. This function gets the address of a Token Account if it already exists. If it doesn't, it will create a new Associated Token Account at the appropriate address.

async function createTokenAccount(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.Keypair,
    mint: web3.PublicKey,
    owner: web3.PublicKey
) {
    const tokenAccount = await token.getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount(
        connection,
        payer,
        mint,
        owner
    )

    console.log(
        `Token Account: https://explorer.solana.com/address/${tokenAccount.address}?cluster=devnet`
    )

    return tokenAccount
}

Add a call the createTokenAccount in main, passing in the mint we created in the previous step and setting the user as the payer and owner.

async function main() {
    const connection = new web3.Connection(web3.clusterApiUrl("devnet"))
    const user = await initializeKeypair(connection)

    const mint = await createNewMint(
        connection,
        user,
        user.publicKey,
        user.publicKey,
        2
    )

    const tokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        user.publicKey
    )
}

4. Mint Tokens

Now that we have a token mint and a token account, lets mint tokens to the token account. Note that only the mintAuthority can mint new tokens to a token account. Recall that we set the user as the mintAuthority for the mint we created.

Create a function mintTokens that uses the spl-token function mintTo to mint tokens:

async function mintTokens(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.Keypair,
    mint: web3.PublicKey,
    destination: web3.PublicKey,
    authority: web3.Keypair,
    amount: number
) {
    const transactionSignature = await token.mintTo(
        connection,
        payer,
        mint,
        destination,
        authority,
        amount
    )

    console.log(
        `Mint Token Transaction: https://explorer.solana.com/tx/${transactionSignature}?cluster=devnet`
    )
}

Lets call the function in main using the mint and tokenAccount created previously.

async function main() {
    const connection = new web3.Connection(web3.clusterApiUrl("devnet"))
    const user = await initializeKeypair(connection)

    const mint = await createNewMint(
        connection,
        user,
        user.publicKey,
        user.publicKey,
        2
    )

    const tokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        user.publicKey
    )

    await mintTokens(connection, user, mint, tokenAccount.address, user, 100)
}

5. Transfer Tokens

Next, lets transfer some of the tokens we just minted using the spl-token library's transfer function.

async function transferTokens(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.Keypair,
    source: web3.PublicKey,
    destination: web3.PublicKey,
    owner: web3.Keypair,
    amount: number
) {
    const transactionSignature = await token.transfer(
        connection,
        payer,
        source,
        destination,
        owner,
        amount
    )

    console.log(
        `Transfer Transaction: https://explorer.solana.com/tx/${transactionSignature}?cluster=devnet`
    )
}

Before we can call this new function, we need to know the account into which we'll transfer the tokens.

In main, lets generate a new Keypair to be the receiver (but remember that this is just to simulate having someone to send tokens to - in a real application you'd need to know the wallet address of the person receiving the tokens).

Then, create a token account for the receiver. Finally, lets call our new transferTokens function to transfer tokens from the user token account to the receiver token account.

async function main() {
    const connection = new web3.Connection(web3.clusterApiUrl("devnet"))
    const user = await initializeKeypair(connection)

    const mint = await createNewMint(
        connection,
        user,
        user.publicKey,
        user.publicKey,
        2
    )

    const tokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        user.publicKey
    )

    await mintTokens(connection, user, mint, tokenAccount.address, user, 100)

    const receiver = web3.Keypair.generate().publicKey
    const receiverTokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        receiver
    )

    await transferTokens(
        connection,
        user,
        tokenAccount.address,
        receiverTokenAccount.address,
        user,
        50
    )
}

6. Burn Tokens

Finally, let's remove some tokens from circulation by burning them.

Create a burnTokens function that uses the spl-token library's burn function to remove half of your tokens from circulation.

async function burnTokens(
    connection: web3.Connection,
    payer: web3.Keypair,
    account: web3.PublicKey,
    mint: web3.PublicKey,
    owner: web3.Keypair,
    amount: number
) {
    const transactionSignature = await token.burn(
        connection,
        payer,
        account,
        mint,
        owner,
        amount
    )

    console.log(
        `Burn Transaction: https://explorer.solana.com/tx/${transactionSignature}?cluster=devnet`
    )
}

Now call this new function in main to burn 25 of the user's tokens.

async function main() {
    const connection = new web3.Connection(web3.clusterApiUrl("devnet"))
    const user = await initializeKeypair(connection)

    const mint = await createNewMint(
        connection,
        user,
        user.publicKey,
        user.publicKey,
        2
    )

    const tokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        user.publicKey
    )

    await mintTokens(connection, user, mint, tokenAccount.address, user, 100)

    const receiver = web3.Keypair.generate().publicKey
    const receiverTokenAccount = await createTokenAccount(
        connection,
        user,
        mint,
        receiver
    )

    await transferTokens(
        connection,
        user,
        tokenAccount.address,
        receiverTokenAccount.address,
        user,
        50
    )

    await burnTokens(connection, user, tokenAccount.address, mint, user, 25)
}

7. Test it all out

With that, run npm start. You should see a series of Solana Explorer links logged to the console. Click on them and see what happened each step of the way! You created a new token mint, created a token account, minted 100 tokens, transferred half of them, and burned 25 more. You're well on your way to being a token expert.

If you need a bit more time with this project to feel comfortable, have a look at the complete solution code

Challenge

Now it’s your turn to build something independently. Create an application that allows a users to create a new mint, create a token account, and mint tokens.

Note that you will not be able to directly use the helper functions we went over in the demo. In order to interact with the Token Program using the Phantom wallet adapter, you will have to build each transaction manually and submit the transaction to Phantom for approval.

You can build this from scratch or you can download the starter code here.
Create a new Token Mint in the CreateMint component. If you need a refresher on how to send transactions to a wallet for approval, have a look at the Wallets lesson.

When creating a new mint, the newly generated Keypair will also have to sign the transaction. When additional signers are required in addition to the connected wallet, use the following format:
```
sendTransaction(transaction, connection, {
    signers: [Keypair],
})
```
Create a new Token Account in the CreateTokenAccount component.
Mint tokens in the MintToForm component.

If you get stumped, feel free to reference the solution code.

And remember, get creative with these challenges and make them your own!

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token-program.md

token-program.md

Create Tokens With The Token Program

Lesson Objectives

TL;DR

Overview

Token Mint

Rent and Rent Exemption

Token Account

Associated Token Account

Mint Tokens

Transfer Tokens

Burn Tokens

Demo

1. Basic scaffolding

2. Create Token Mint

3. Create Token Account

4. Mint Tokens

5. Transfer Tokens

6. Burn Tokens

7. Test it all out

Challenge

Files

token-program.md

Latest commit

History

token-program.md

File metadata and controls

Create Tokens With The Token Program

Lesson Objectives

TL;DR

Overview

Token Mint

Rent and Rent Exemption

Token Account

Associated Token Account

Mint Tokens

Transfer Tokens

Burn Tokens

Demo

1. Basic scaffolding

2. Create Token Mint

3. Create Token Account

4. Mint Tokens

5. Transfer Tokens

6. Burn Tokens

7. Test it all out

Challenge