Inspect the supplied case
Native assets belong to a network protocol; contract tokens use application rules deployed on that network. A smart contract is software that records or changes state when its conditions are met.
On Ethereum, ether pays protocol transaction fees. An ERC-20An Ethereum token interface for balances and transfers.
Example: ClinicUnit uses identical units while its terms define clinic access. token is not ether just because both appear in a wallet.
ERC-20 is a published Ethereum token-interface standard. A wallet is a tool for interacting with accounts, not a guarantee about the assets it displays. We use Ethereum standards as examples, not a universal vocabulary for every ledger.
Supplied fictional input
A fictional Ethereum account displays 12 ClassCredits and 0 ETH. ClassCredits follows a token contract; no fee sponsorship is supplied.
Identify the two asset roles in the Decision scope section without proposing a live transfer.
Compare your response
ClassCredits is the application token; ETH is the native fee asset for a direct Ethereum transaction in this example.
The application balance does not establish a native fee balance. A service may separately sponsor fees, but that arrangement is absent from this packet.
Check your work: Distinguish the network asset from the application balance and state the no-sponsorship assumption.
Source
ethereum.org contributors (2025), Technical intro to ether. Ethereum Mainnet concepts only; no live fee estimate or transaction procedure.