Coin

A coin is a cryptocurrency that is native to its own blockchain — the asset the network itself issues and uses to pay for security and transaction fees. Bitcoin (BTC) is the coin of the Bitcoin network, ether (ETH) is the coin of Ethereum, and SOL is the coin of Solana. Coins are created by the protocol's own rules, typically as rewards to the miners or validators who secure the chain.

This distinguishes coins from tokens, which are assets created by smart contracts on top of an existing blockchain. For example, on Ethereum, ETH is the coin: every transaction fee on the network must be paid in it, and validators stake it to secure the chain. USDC, by contrast, lives on Ethereum as a token — it depends on Ethereum's infrastructure and has no blockchain of its own.

A common misconception is that the distinction is just pedantry; it actually matters practically, because you always need the native coin to pay fees — a wallet holding only tokens and zero ETH cannot move those tokens on Ethereum until it acquires some ETH for gas. In everyday speech, "coin" is often used loosely for any cryptocurrency, and phrases like "meme coin" frequently describe assets that are technically tokens. When precision matters, the test is simple: does the asset have its own blockchain?