How can one build their own blockchain or cryptocurrency?

That's a fascinating subject, I've dabbled a bit in it myself. A lot of building your own blockchain comes down to first understanding the principles of what makes a blockchain. Understanding concepts like decentralization, immutability, and encryption is key. Now, the difficulty can vary quite a bit depending on which programming language you're using. I've seen some pretty thorough guides in Python for instance. You can start with creating a basic block, defining its structure, then move onto creating a blockchain class to store these blocks. For creating a cryptocurrency, you would need to add additional features to your blockchain, such as creating transactions, recording balances, etc.

Would you consider using a platform like Ethereum which allows you to create your own token with relative ease? It saves you the trouble of creating your own blockchain, and you can still customize quite a bit too. It's a lot to wrap your head around, isn't it? What specific aspect of blockchain/cryptocurrency development are you most interested in?