# What are Siacoins? Siacoins are the utility tokens that power the Sia network. This article is included early on because anything you want to do on the network requires Siacoins, whether you want to hold or trade, or rent or host data. Siacoins are used in lots of ways but serve a single purpose – facilitating network operations. When you upload files to Sia, you pay for that storage in Siacoins. If you're a host and you're storing other people's data, you get paid for that in Siacoins. If you own Siafunds, your share of Sia network growth is paid out in, you guessed it, Siacoins. You can send Siacoins to others, or receive them at your own wallet address. You can store them in our official software, or on a hardware or paper wallet. You can get Siacoins by having someone send them to you, buying them on an exchange, or mining them. New Siacoins are only made by mining. There's over 40 billion Siacoins out there right now, and that number will never stop growing. Sia is going to be the storage layer of the internet, and billions will be required for the petabytes and exabytes of data that will be stored on Sia. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.sia.tech/legacy/get-started-with-sia/what-are-siacoins.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.