Within a private network, a 'token' can be used to grant a right, to pay for a job or for providing data, as an incentive, as a gateway to extra services or to a better user experience...

That's what tokens do: they represent something else, they are in place. Why? There are many reasons: convenience, security, ease of transport or transfer.

In the crypto world, tokens are generated from pieces of programming code, in the format of smart contracts that run on the blockchain. These "smart contracts" are portions of computer code that determine the rules or operation of a tool or crypto platform.

There are numerous types of tokens:

Currency token: These are what we call cryptocurrency. While Bitcoin (capitalized) refers to the network, bitcoin (lowercase) is the currency. And those bitcoins today can be used for any daily transaction, as a replacement for traditional money.

UtilityToken: They are the unit of account of a crypto project or community, i.e. the token used to measure an amount of a certain asset. These tokens are not designed as an investment, beyond the fact that the boom in their demand and a limitation of their number can trigger the price of some. Rather, they function as a means of access to certain services.

Community Token: These tokens are an alternative within the utility tokens focused on the idea of community, around some collective such as the participants of a play-to-earn game, or a metaverse experience, or the community of users of a crypto platform. In general, they provide access to certain benefits, which can range from discounts and bonuses to special functionalities or access to the community's own communication channels in Discord, Slack or Telegram, for example.

Security Token: They function as an investment contract, and those who buy them do so expecting a current (in the form of dividends from a company) or future profit. They serve as a guarantee of ownership of a portion of the digital asset issued, and gain and lose value according to their price fluctuations. They can also function as shares. They are instruments designed for financial gain and are therefore often subject to stricter regulations.

Asset Token: It is designed to represent real world objects, to facilitate the buying and selling of physical items without the need to move them from one place to another. With an asset token we could buy and sell gold, for example, without the need to transport it. Also livestock, property, automobiles, toys, books.