Deploying ERC20 Token With Hardhat: A Step-by-Step Guide

The article provides a detailed guide on deploying an ERC20 token using Hardhat, a development environment for Ethereum smart contract development, emphasizing the setup, deployment, and testing processes. It begins with initializing a project in VS Code, installing necessary libraries like OpenZeppelin for secure contract implementations, and Chai for unit testing. The guide includes creating a Solidity smart contract titled "MyToken," explaining its structure and features such as capped supply, burnable tokens, and miner rewards. It then covers configuring the Solidity version and compiling the project using Hardhat. The testing section demonstrates writing and running unit tests to validate contract functionalities like token transfers and balance updates. The article also explains configuring deployment settings with Hardhat, using Infura for network access, and securing MetaMask wallet details in a .env file. Following the deployment of the token to the Sepolia test network, the guide instructs on verifying the contract on Etherscan and importing the token to MetaMask for transactions. Finally, it walks through transferring tokens between MetaMask accounts, verifying balances, and checking transaction details on Etherscan.