What is a token? (vs a digital artwork)
A token is fungible: every unit is identical and interchangeable, like dollars in a bank account. A digital artwork is one-of-a-kind. On artsunami, a token is a Coin: an ERC-20 on Base that trades live on a bonding curve from its first second.
Token vs digital art, in one paragraph
A digital art (ERC-721 or ERC-1155) is a unique on-chain object: token #42 of your PFP collection is different from token #43. A token (ERC-20) is fungible: there's one big pile and every unit is identical. If you launch 1,000,000,000 PEPE tokens, every PEPE is interchangeable with every other PEPE - the only thing that varies is how many you hold.
Why a creator launches a token
Two common reasons. (1) Community currency - holders can use your coin to tip, vote or unlock perks around your work. (2) A coin around your art or your community - a low-stakes way to give fans skin in the game, often more accessible than a $500 artwork, and it earns its creator half of the 1% fee on every trade.
Where the price comes from
A digital art's price is whatever someone is willing to pay on a marketplace - so a brand-new collection with no traders has no price. A token launched on artsunami starts with a price the moment the contract deploys, because the smart contract itself is the market: it always quotes a buy price and a sell price using a bonding curve (see /help/bonding-curve). The first buyer pays the curve, not another human.
How it works on artsunami
Create → Coin (/create/token). Three steps: a picture or GIF (JPEG, PNG or GIF, up to 8 MB - no video), a name and a ticker, then Launch: one signature for the launch fee + gas on Base. The coin trades within seconds at /token/[chainId]/[address], and appears in the feed with Buy and Sell buttons. No liquidity to seed, no listing, no exchange needed. See /help/coins for the whole tour.
Nami lives at the top of the Help center. It knows every topic in this center and can walk you through your specific collection, wallet or transaction.