What is Elrond Standard Digital Token (ESDT)?

An Elrond Standard Digital Token (ESDT) is similar to the ERC-20 tokenization standard employed by the Ethereum network. ESDTs enable true asset ownership and programmability with minimal transfer fees, allowing Elrond's infrastructure to build a robust variety of DeFi products. Elrond Standard Digital Tokens are designed to facilitate inexpensive token transfers that allow tokens to be moved from one account to another without utilizing a smart contract. Because of their native in-protocol support, transactions sent or received with ESDTs don't require use of the Elrond Virtual Machine (EVM) — enabling a user-friendly, fast, and scalable token transaction ecosystem that functions similarly to that of Elrond eGold (eGLD).