Is forking a coin like monero or bytecoin the only way to create a privacy coin? or is there some other blockchain? like erc-20 but for privacy coins
If you can't create it yourself then forking is the way. But you aren't really "creating" anything of value, nor it should have value if you aren't bringing anything new to the table. Tokens on the blockchain aren't really privacy coins, they are just tokens. There aren't privacy smart contracts yet that allow creating natively private tokens, But Dusk Network is creating one. Testnet Feb 2022