Token Issuance
In short: Token issuance is the process of creating new tokens and adding them to the total token supply of a cryptocurrency.
Token issuance is the process of creating new tokens and adding them to the total token supply of a cryptocurrency. It is often called minting; the opposite process, burning, removes tokens from the supply.
Why it matters
How a token is issued shapes its supply over time. Some networks create new coins only as block or staking rewards, on a schedule written into their rules; Bitcoin, for example, issues new coins only as rewards to miners. Other tokens are minted by a smart contract, with or without a maximum supply. Every new issuance means each existing token represents a smaller share of the total, so it helps to know who can mint and under what limits.
Example
A project deploys an ERC-20 contract that mints an initial supply to its treasury at launch. The contract also has a mint function that can only be used after a governance vote. Later, token holders approve a new batch for ecosystem grants. Once the mint transaction is confirmed, the total supply shown on a block explorer rises by exactly that amount.