What is Coin

Coins generally refers to The original and native assets of the blockchain networksuch as BTC to the Bitcoin network, ETH to the Ethereum network, and SOL to the Solana network. These Coins often serve as the economic backbone of the blockchain network, serving as rewards for miners or nodes for maintaining the network, and as a decentralized payment method.

What is a miner? What significance do they have for blockchain networks? Please refer to the "What is Mining" chapter.

What is Token

Tokens generally means that you do not need to create a new blockchain yourself, but in the existing blockchain On, use a certain standardized format to directly mint the issued digital assets (mostly created by smart contracts). The most common format standards are: ERC-20, BEP-20, SLP, ERC-721, etc.

What is ERC-20? What is ERC-721? Please refer to the "What is ERC-20" and "What is NFT" entries.

Different from Coin as a maintenance incentive, the purpose of Token is mainly to serve DApp (decentralized application). As a utility token, it provides different economic functions for DApp (of course it can also as a decentralized payment method). Common Tokens such as: USDT (issued in multiple blockchain networks), NFT (Token under the ERC-721 standard), etc.

For example, compare

ETH is a Coin, and WETH is a Token (more accurately, a packaging Token).

ETH, as the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, is not a Fungible Token under the ERC-20 standard but a Coin, which is held directly through the account system of the Ethereum network.

WETH, as a homogeneous token, exists in smart contracts. Holding this currency means that your account address is recorded in the contract.

You may be interested in:

• What are wrapped tokens?
• What is an account model?