Coin vs Blockchain Network: Why It Matters When You Send Crypto

This is one of the most useful things to understand when you begin your crypto journey, because getting it wrong is how people send crypto into the void. The confusion is between a coin and the blockchain network it travels on, and once you get it you understand why.

A coin and a network are two different things. A coin like USDC can exist on many different networks: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism and others. Think of the networks as separate rails the same coin can ride on. The coin is what you are sending, the network is the road it takes.

The one rule that matters when you send: the network has to match on both ends. The wallet you send from and the wallet you receive on both have to be set to the same network for that coin. The way I think about it is messaging apps. You can only message someone on Messenger if you are both on Messenger. You cannot send a Messenger message to someone who is only on Instagram. Same idea here. If you send USDC on Avalanche, the receiving side has to be expecting USDC on Avalanche. Send it on the wrong network to a wallet that does not support it and you can lose it.

The part that trips people up is that sometimes the coin name and the network name are the same. Bitcoin the coin mostly travels on the Bitcoin network. Avalanche the coin travels on the Avalanche network. So you see the same word twice and it gets confusing, and that is something you mostly just learn from doing it a few times.

If you are ever unsure which networks a coin lives on, go to coinmarketcap.com, search the coin, and scroll down to see the networks it supports. Each one also has a contract address, which is the unique ID for that exact coin on that exact network, so if you want to be completely certain you are adding the right one, you can match the contract address. This same network choice is also what decides your fees, which I covered separately here.

Did the coin versus network thing confuse you early on too, or did it click straight away?

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