Native coin versus token
Every blockchain has exactly one native coin: the asset baked into the protocol itself. It is not created by a smart contract or a deployment — it is minted by the chain's own consensus rules as blocks are produced, and it is the unit the network uses to account for the cost of doing work. Bitcoin issues BTC, Ethereum issues ETH, Solana issues SOL, the BNB Smart Chain issues BNB, and so on. When people talk about "the coin of" a chain, they mean this base asset.
A token, by contrast, is an asset that lives on top of a chain rather than being the chain itself. USDT and USDC are tokens: they are smart-contract balances defined by a standard like ERC-20 on Ethereum, TRC-20 on Tron, or the SPL token program on Solana. The contract tracks who holds how much, but the contract — and therefore the token — depends entirely on the underlying chain to settle every transfer. A token cannot move without the native coin, because the native coin is what pays the network to record the move.
That dependency is the practical reason the distinction matters. The same USDT can exist as a token on three different chains, and on each one the gas fee for sending it is charged in that chain's native coin: ETH on Ethereum, TRX on Tron, SOL on Solana. A wallet holding only the token cannot transfer it; it also needs a small balance of the native coin to cover the fee. The token is the value being moved, and the native coin is the fuel that moves it.
What it means in a crypto payment
In a payment, the native coin shows up in two ways. First, it is itself a payable asset — a customer can settle an invoice directly in BTC, ETH, SOL, or another chain's base coin, the same way they could pay in a stablecoin. Second, even when the payment is in a token, the native coin is the cost of sending it: the payer's wallet spends a little of the chain's base asset to broadcast the transfer, separate from whatever is being paid.
This is why the choice of network is partly a choice about native-coin economics. A stablecoin transfer on a low-fee chain spends very little of that chain's native coin, so the gas cost is negligible against the payment; the same transfer on a congested chain can cost meaningfully more, because the native-coin fee is higher. The asset being paid may be identical across rails, but the native coin each rail charges to move it is not — and that difference is much of why some networks have become the default for everyday transfers.
Native coins on halfin
halfin supports several native coins directly as payable and payout assets: BTC on Bitcoin, ETH on Ethereum and the EVM L2s, SOL on Solana, XRP on the XRP Ledger, TRX on Tron, and the base coin of the BNB Smart Chain. A customer can pay an invoice in a native coin just as they can in a stablecoin, and a merchant can send a payout denominated in one. Because invoices are anchored to fiat, halfin maps the billed fiat amount to a payable amount in the chosen native coin using the live rate and locks that figure when the invoice activates — the payer then sends the exact native-coin amount shown.
Native coins also matter on halfin even when the payment is in a stablecoin, because the network fee for that transfer is always charged in the chain's native coin and paid by the payer's wallet to the network — never set or received by halfin. If a payer's wallet deducts that native-coin fee from the amount being sent rather than adding it on top, the deposit can arrive slightly under the invoiced figure; halfin treats that as an underpaid invoice, surfaces it explicitly, and emits an invoice.underpaid event rather than silently marking it paid.
The same is true on the way out. A payout is a real on-chain send, so it carries the destination chain's native-coin fee like any other transaction — a fee that is a function of the chain and its congestion at the time, not a fixed halfin number. Whether you are receiving a native coin as payment or paying its fee to move a token, the native coin is the asset the chain itself runs on.
- One per chain — every blockchain has a single native coin issued by its own protocol: BTC, ETH, SOL, TRX, XRP, BNB.
- Pays the fees — every transaction's gas fee is charged in the chain's native coin, even when a token is what's being moved.
- Also a payable asset — on halfin a customer can settle an invoice directly in a native coin, not only in stablecoins.
- Distinct from tokens — stablecoins like USDT and USDC are contract-issued tokens that ride on a chain; the native coin is the chain's own base asset.