A token is just a building block. Here's what people build with them, all settled directly on-chain, with no middleman holding the funds.
Automation
Rules that run themselves, on the chain you already use.
Imagine a team that wants its own tokens released over two years rather than all at once. They deploy a contract that holds the supply and releases a slice each month.
The schedule is enforced by the protocol rather than by a promise, and anyone can read the contract to check the terms before taking the deal. The same shape covers escrow and simple market-making.
Uses DEPLOY · EXECUTE
Imagine a contest where entries have to be judged rather than counted. A contract asks a governance-approved AI model a question; validators each answer independently and must agree before the result is written on chain.
Both the question and the verdict are on chain, so an entrant can see exactly what was asked. The answer arrives through a callback.
Not instant: the request, the validator round, and the callback each take time. Design for an answer that arrives later, not in the same breath.
Uses DEPLOY · EXECUTE · ATTEST
Imagine a service that wants to put money behind its promises. It deploys a stakeable contract and locks tokens against it, with the cooldown and the slashing rule fixed at deploy time and never changeable.
Customers can check the stake for themselves. If the contract's rules say a stake should be slashed, the protocol does it, and the operator cannot quietly withdraw first.
Uses DEPLOY · STAKE · SLASH
Business
Use the chain as the record everyone can check, instead of the one you ask people to trust.
Imagine a coffee importer issuing one token per shipment lot. As the lot changes hands, the token moves with it: farm co-op, exporter, roaster.
The chain of custody is the token's transfer history, and a roaster can read it rather than trusting a paper trail.
The chain records who held the token, not what was in the sack. It makes the paperwork tamper-evident; it does not verify the goods.
Uses ISSUE · SEND · BROADCAST
Imagine a training provider issuing course certificates. Each graduate receives a token, and the provider keeps the ability to recall it if the certification lapses.
An employer verifies by checking that the wallet holds a token issued by that provider. Recall works across every holder at once, so a lapsed cohort can be retired in one action.
Uses ISSUE · SEND · CALLBACK
Imagine a standards body publishing the fingerprint of a document so anyone can later prove which version existed on a given date.
The record is timestamped by the block it landed in and cannot be quietly edited afterwards. Anyone can check it without asking the publisher for anything.
Uses BROADCAST · FILE
Communities
Use a token to represent who belongs, and let the blockchain enforce the rules.
Imagine a climbing gym that wants member perks without building another app. It issues 400 MEMBER tokens, one per membership, and sends one to each member's wallet when they join.
Holding the token is the membership. A member shows their wallet at the desk, or a bot checks their balance before letting them into the members' channel. When someone leaves, the gym recalls the token.
Uses ISSUE · LIST · SEND
Imagine a neighbourhood association deciding where to spend its budget. It airdrops one voting token to each of its 230 households and opens a poll on chain.
Every household votes from its own wallet, and only those 230 addresses can take part. Anyone can count the result themselves rather than trusting an organiser's tally.
Ballots are public, like everything else on the chain. This is transparent voting, not secret voting.
Uses ISSUE · LIST · SEND · AIRDROP
Imagine a study group behind a paywall. Instead of usernames and passwords, one access token is the key: a bot checks whether your wallet holds one before letting you into the chat.
Members prove ownership by signing a challenge with their wallet, so there is no password to leak and no account list to maintain. If someone sells the token, access travels with it.
Uses ISSUE · LIST · CALLBACK
Creators
Sell work directly, and attach rules that hold wherever the work ends up.
Imagine a photographer selling a 40-image pack. The files are encrypted and published on chain, and the key to decrypt them travels to whoever holds the token.
A buyer holding the token can decrypt and download. Resell the token and the new holder gains access while the seller loses it, with no download link to revoke.
The encrypted file is public; only the contents are protected. Publishing it is permanent.
Uses ISSUE · FILE · LIST
Imagine an illustrator releasing a run of 25 pieces. Each is a token with a supply of one and no decimal places, the artwork stored on chain, and a rule attached that pays the illustrator a 5% cut of every resale.
Collectors trade them on the built-in order book. The 5% split is applied by the protocol when the trade fills, so it does not depend on a marketplace choosing to honour it.
Uses ISSUE · FILE · ORDER
Imagine someone who built up a token and its community, and now wants to hand the whole thing over. They sell not their balance but the issuer rights.
The buyer becomes the token's owner, able to mint, update it, and set its rules. The handover settles atomically: either both sides complete or neither does.
Uses ISSUE · LIST · ORDER
Money
Raise money, reward repeat customers, and pay people out, without a payment processor in between.
Imagine a board-game designer funding a print run. They issue a token capped at 2,000 and open a public mint window for one month; backers mint their own share directly.
Nobody holds the money in escrow and nobody approves each backer. Anyone can watch the mint count climb on the explorer, and once the window closes no more can ever be created, by anyone, including the designer.
Uses ISSUE · MINT · DISPENSER
Imagine a coffee shop replacing its paper punch card. It issues a token and sends one to the customer's wallet with every coffee; ten of them buys the eleventh free.
The customer scans a code at the till and the balance appears in the same wallet they use for everything else. Nothing to reprint when a card is lost, and the shop can see exactly how many punches are outstanding.
Uses ISSUE · MINT · SEND
Imagine a small studio that split its ownership into 1,000 shares. At the end of a quarter it pays out to every holder in a single action, proportional to how many shares each one holds.
Holders receive the payment in their wallet without claiming it or filling in a form. The split is computed from a snapshot of holders and settles on chain.
Uses ISSUE · DIVIDEND
Markets
The exchange is part of the protocol, so selling something does not mean building an exchange.
Imagine a community that wants to trade its own tokens without standing up an exchange. The order book already exists in the protocol, so the marketplace is a front end over it.
Sellers place orders, buyers fill them, and settlement happens on chain with no custodian holding either side in between. Orders can be cancelled or repriced at any time.
Uses ORDER · LIST
Imagine an artist who wants to keep selling while asleep. They set up a dispenser at a fixed price, and anyone who pays it is sent the token automatically.
No server to run, no checkout to build, and nobody approving each sale. The price can even be set as a dollar amount that converts at the moment of purchase.
Uses DISPENSER · COINPAY
Imagine someone holding a token on Litecoin who wants one that lives on Dogecoin. They swap directly, and validators confirm the source side really settled before the far side completes.
No bridge, no wrapped coin, and no pooled contract holding everyone's funds in the middle.
Scoped to the chains XChain runs on: Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin. This is not a route to other ecosystems.
Uses SWAP · ORDER
Enterprise
The same protocol and the same tooling, on infrastructure you run yourself.
Imagine a company running its own XChain deployment to track credits between departments, on a chain only it operates.
The same actions, wallet, explorer and SDK as the public network, with the data staying on infrastructure they control.
A private deployment inherits the security of whoever runs it, not Bitcoin's. The proof-of-work argument does not come along.
Uses ISSUE · SEND
Imagine a game studio that wants players to trade in-game items without writing a trading system.
Orders and dispensers already exist in the protocol, so the studio wires a UI to them instead of building and operating a matching engine.
Uses ORDER · DISPENSER
Imagine a team that wants to learn the platform before committing to anything. They run the whole stack on regtest, where blocks are mined on demand and coins cost nothing.
Every action behaves the way it does on mainnet, so what they learn transfers directly and nothing costs real money until they decide to move.
Uses ISSUE · MINT · SEND