# Issue your own governance token

Once your ZK rollup on Bitcoin is up and running, it's common to issue a governance token that can be used for raising funds for future projects and for governing your project's activities as a DAO.

{% hint style="info" %}
Since your ZK Rollup is EVM-compatible, dApps should be written in Solidity. If you are new to this programming language, please learn more about it [here](https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/v0.8.26/).
{% endhint %}

The total amount of tokens in circulation can be set to a simple fixed amount or fluctuate based on any programmed ruleset.

## Write the governance token issuance smart contract

Extending the OpenZeppelin ERC-20 contract, we create a governance token (BIT) for your Layer 2 on Bitcoin. 

```solidity
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC20/ERC20.sol";

contract Bitswap is ERC20 {
    constructor(uint256 initialSupply) ERC20("Bitswap", "BIT") {
        _mint(msg.sender, initialSupply);
    }
}
```

## Clone the smart contract examples

We've prepared a few different examples for you to get started.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/trustlesscomputer/smart-contract-examples.git
```

## Compile and Deploy the contracts

Refer to the [tutorial](https://docs.bvm.network/bvm/more/how-to-deploy-a-smart-contract-to-supersonic).

## Interact with the contracts

Once the contracts are deployed, you can interact with them. We've prepared a few `hardhat tasks` to make it easy for you to interact with the contracts.

```bash
npx hardhat balanceERC20
npx hardhat transferERC20 --from <your-address> --amount <transfer-amount> --to <your-address>
```