Digital currencies, also known as cryptocurrencies, digital coins, or currency tokens, are designed to facilitate quick and reliable peer-to-peer transactions.
Bitcoin and number of alternatives fall under this category. If fact, many of them came to exist simply by modifying Bitcoin’s core code. Such coins are Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Zcash, and many others. Other digital currencies are written from scratch. Coins like Monero, Bytecoin, Ripple, Stellar, Nano, and similar projects still serve the same goal, but use different approaches.
These are tokens that grant users specific rights, such as access to platform functions, services, and privileges. Alternately, they are called app coins. In most cases, utility tokens are issued on a specific blockchain or DLT platform (like Ethereum) and are distributed via Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s). ICO’s are used to crowdfund project development. ICO investors, in turn, receive platform tokens. Some projects allow the token holders to vote on important governance decisions or stake the tokens for bonus rewards. Few popular examples of utility tokens are Basic Attention Token (BAT), Golem (GNT), Status (SNT), Revain (R), Augur (REP).