Crypto Core Education

What are token decimals in a crypto contract?

Token decimals are a setting in a crypto token's contract that defines how many decimal places the token can be divided into, determining its smallest fractional unit. Most ERC-20 tokens use 18 decimals, while some, like certain stablecoins, use 6. Internally, balances are stored as whole numbers, and the decimals value tells software where to place the decimal point for display. For example, with 18 decimals, one token is recorded as 1 followed by eighteen zeros. It is a technical parameter that governs divisibility, not value.