Native Coin

A native coin is the base digital asset directly built into a particular blockchain protocol. Its accounting and circulation rules are part of the protocol itself rather than a separate token contract or application.

A native coin commonly serves several functions at once. It can be used to pay transaction fees, transfer value, and reward participants who provide network resources.

Role of a native coin

• paying for computational or network resources;
• incentivizing miners or validators;
• transferring value between users;
• participating in network security;
• in some systems, participating in protocol governance.

For example, BTC is the native coin of Bitcoin, while ETH is the native coin of Ethereum. Ethereum can also host thousands of tokens that use its infrastructure and ETH for network resources without being the native asset of Ethereum itself.