Ever since Nixer announced the possibility of issuing your own tokens (IOUs) on the XRPL leveraging on Xumm and Xumm.Community, I had been aching to go ahead and learn how to issue an IOU on the XRP Ledger myself. One of the reasons I hadn't done it, apart from the lack of time, was the lack of a good name, because I really didn't want to go with Moncho Coin.

But now I finally have found some time and a name (and I must say, I love it!). Finding that name took some research, I decided to start by going way back in the history of my country, El Salvador. I mean way, way back to the pre-Columbian era (The Classic Maya period, more specifically) when our Mayan ancestors used cocoa beans as their currency. No, I'm not kidding! It's all over the internet! Check out this article from Newsweek, for example:

https://www.newsweek.com/ancient-maya-used-chocolate-money-1001513

Cool! I found a motive. But I still needed a name. Luckily, as I continued my research I found this post in the website of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador where the name of the cocoa-backed currency appeared:

Even though, bartering was a way of trading until XX century, the use of cacao for exchanging value dates all the way back to the rise of the Mayan civilization. The Xontle was the cacao’s [cocoa's] monetary unit and was made up of 400 cacao [cocoa] almonds.

There it was! The Xontle (XTL). Now, just to be clear, XTL is a cocoa-inspired token created for educational purposes, and not a cocoa-backed stablecoin 😬. So if I send you 1 XTL don't expect anyone to give you 400 cocoa beans in exchange, although it would be pretty cool!

The Easy IOU Process

Now, the following is not meant to be a how-to guide for you to create IOUs via Easy IOU. It is just a selection of screenshots I took throughout the process.

If you wish to create your own IOU, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the concepts behind IOUs and read carefully the instructions during the process and that you ensure that you understand what you are doing.

To issue XTL, I went to xumm.community Easy IOUs! feature (2nd option in the website's main menu...

And followed the yellow brick road:

After reading the instructions in step 1, I proceeded to make sure I fulfilled the requirements and paid the 5 XRP fee.

And here it is...the historic moment when the chocolate printer went brrrrrr 😅

And the rest of the steps were pretty straight forward (although you have to read carefully). With everything it took me a bit less than half an hour to complete the process...

Et voilà. Xontle is now an issued token in the XRPL 😎.

The process overall is very well explained and the consequences of each of the choices are clearly presented. A big shout out to Xumm.Community for this awesome feature. I think these are the 5 XRP I have enjoyed the most spending!

Wrap-Up

Bringing Xontle to the XRP Ledger was not only a lot of fun, I also achieved many things: I learned how to issue an IOU on the XRPL, I got to read a bit more about the history of money and most importantly I brought a piece of cultural identity from the Mayas to the XRP Ledger.

It is a great feeling for me, to honor a currency that was used centuries ago by bringing it to a digital form.

Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

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