Bitcoin, USDT and a token launched last Tuesday are not the same category of thing. The difference is who, if anyone, issues them.

People use "crypto" for everything that lives on a blockchain, which hides a distinction that matters more than almost anything else you can learn early. There are three categories, and the question that separates them is simple: who issues this, and what can they do?

1. CoinThe native asset of its own network. No issuer, no off-switch, price floats.
2. TokenA program deployed on somebody else's network. Its author decides what it can do.
3. StablecoinA token with a company promising it is worth a dollar. The promise is the product and the risk.

A coin is the native asset of its own network

Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network. Ether on Ethereum. Each network needs an internal unit to pay for its own operation, and that unit is built into the rules of the network itself.

Nobody issues these in the way a company issues shares. New units appear according to a schedule written into the software, and changing that schedule would require convincing most of the network to run different software. There is no office to call, and equally, no office that can freeze your balance.

A token lives on someone else's network

A token is not built into a network's rules. It is a program deployed onto an existing network, which keeps its own list of who holds what and follows whatever rules its author wrote.

This is why launching a token is easy — it is a small piece of software, and thousands appear every day. It is also why tokens vary so wildly in what they permit. The author decides. A token contract can allow the issuer to mint more, to freeze specific addresses, to block transfers entirely, or none of the above. Two tokens sitting in the same wallet can behave completely differently.

When you hold a token, you are trusting whoever wrote and controls that contract, on top of trusting the network underneath it.

A stablecoin is a token with a promise attached

A stablecoin is a token whose issuer promises that each unit is worth one dollar, and that they hold assets to back it. The price does not float, because the issuer stands ready to redeem.

That promise is the product. It is also the risk, and it is worth being precise about what it involves.

The issuer is a company. That company holds the reserves, publishes attestations about them, and operates under some regulator's rules, or none. It can also, in almost every case, freeze individual addresses when compelled by a court or a law-enforcement request — and it does. Tokens have been frozen in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

None of this is hidden or exotic. It is simply the opposite of the property people assume all crypto has.

USDT and USDC are not interchangeable

Both track one dollar and both are widely accepted, but they are issued by different companies under different regimes.

USDT is issued by Tether, the oldest and by far the largest stablecoin by circulation. It exists on more networks than any competitor, which is why it dominates in regions where people move value peer-to-peer.

USDC is issued by Circle, a US company that has positioned itself around regulatory compliance and regular reporting on reserves.

Which of these matters to you depends on what you are doing and where you live, and we are deliberately not ranking them. What you should take away is that "a dollar on the blockchain" always means a dollar issued by a specific company, and the company is part of what you are holding.

BUSD is the useful cautionary tale

BUSD was a major stablecoin issued by Paxos for Binance. In 2023 the issuer stopped minting new units under regulatory pressure and the token was wound down.

Holders were able to redeem, so this was an orderly end rather than a collapse. But it demonstrated the point better than any argument.

What this means in practice

When somebody says they hold "crypto", ask which kind. A native coin has no issuer and no off-switch, and its price moves. A stablecoin holds its value and has an issuer who can act on it. A token launched last week is a piece of software written by a stranger.

All three can sit in the same wallet and look identical in the interface. They are not the same kind of thing, and the difference shows up exactly when something goes wrong.