How to start an AltChain

[MegaDaninski]

I love the concept of Bitcoin, but I'd like to create my own 'strand' of the bitcoin blockchain for use in my community to facilitate local trade networks. I do have some background in IT, and would like to know what I need to do to start mining my own chain. We'll call it, MyTownCoin for sake of this discussion.

I don't want to use Bitcoin because of the price barrier for entry. I need to mine my own coins so that I can distribute them locally and market extensively, and BTC is just too expensive now for the aims that I have. Plus, I want to get into the guts of the beast and get a better understanding of what makes it tick so that I can defend my network in the future.

Does anyone know how to go about this or can point me to some resource to begin implementing this?

Thanks,
MegaD

[phorensic]

Poke around on github.com . Stare at the code for a couple million hours.  Realize you are an IT guy and not really a programmer.  Fork the code and try anyway.

That's what I do.

[Rannasha]

Why would the price of BTC be an objection? BitCoin can be split into very tiny fractions, so unless you don't want to be dealing with fractions, there is no price-advantage of making your own fork.