Native coin or token issued on top
The distinction is structural rather than a matter of naming.
A native token exists as part of the protocol. It is created by the network’s own rules, it pays transaction fees, and on proof-of-stake chains it is what validators stake as collateral. Remove it and the chain stops functioning.
A token issued on top is a record inside a smart contract running on that chain. USDT, USDC and thousands of others are this. They inherit the chain’s security and its transaction rules, and the chain itself is indifferent to what they represent.
USDT is not native to anything. It exists as a contract on Ethereum, another on TRON, another on Solana, and so on, which is why the same USDT behaves differently depending on which one you are using.
The practical consequence that catches people out
To send a token, you need the native token of that chain to pay the fee.
This is the single most common reason a transfer fails to leave a wallet, after sending to the wrong network. A wallet holding 500 USDT on Ethereum and no ETH cannot move that USDT anywhere. The balance is visible, it is genuinely yours, and it is stuck until somebody sends a small amount of ETH to the same address.
The same applies everywhere: BNB to move BEP-20 tokens, TRX to move TRC-20, SOL to move anything on Solana.
Two consequences for a business. First, when paying out to someone, remember that the recipient may need gas before they can do anything with what you sent. Second, when funding your own wallets, keep a small native balance on each chain you use rather than discovering the gap during a payout run.
TRON’s partial exception
TRON handles this differently enough to be worth knowing. Rather than paying fees purely in TRX per transaction, the network allocates energy and bandwidth, which regenerate daily and can be obtained by staking TRX.
The practical effect is that a wallet doing regular transfers can cover much of its activity without spending TRX at all, provided enough is staked. A wallet with neither staked TRX nor a TRX balance still cannot move anything.