An alternative cryptocurrency to Bitcoin was Bitcoin until another alternative was created. Bitcoin dominated in its early days, creating altcoins in response to the original cryptocurrency. So whatever wasn’t Bitcoin was, ironically or otherwise, called altcoins or perhaps even monetary describes how little Bitcoin accepted and became a real thing.
Alternative coins are any cryptocurrency that’s not Bitcoin. In the early days of digital coins, this definition makes immense sense since Bitcoin boasts a large share of the marketplace’s attention. Competitors seem to make up a dozen or a few hundred alternative coins.
Today, top specialists estimate an approximate amount of over 20,000 distinct cryptocurrencies. It makes more sense than ever to define the crypto industry simply as Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies.
CoinMarketCap said Bitcoin is still the largest cryptocurrency by far, with a market capitalization of the most significant value out there at twice the value of the second largest cryptocurrency. The other coins quickly decrease in size.
Types of Altcoins
Cryptocurrency speculators are spoiled for choice by how many altcoins there are. But it’s generally true that many exchanges concentrate on the most prominent players or those with the most impressive specs, like fast transaction times.
Payment Token
Exhibiting the characteristics of a currency, payment tokens are meant to be a means of exchange. Bitcoin, for example, is a type of payment token.
Stablecoins
Using cryptocurrency trading and ownership has been marked by uncertainty since the principle was established. Stablecoins intend to decrease this volatility by setting up their prices by the value of a range of goods, such as fiat currencies, precious metals, or alternative cryptocurrencies. The bundled goods are meant to be a security blanket to guarantee that the cryptocurrency will be redeemable in case the currency faces a downside or fails.
Notable stablecoins include Tether’s USDT, MakerDAO’s DAI, and the U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC). In March 2021, global payment processing giant Visa Inc. (V) announced that it would accept stablecoins on some Ethereum-based platforms, with plans to expand the number of available stablecoin exchanges in September that year.
Security Tokens
Securities tokens are tokenized assets that are offered on the markets by tokenizing. Tokenization transfers value from an asset to a token, then made available to investors. Any purchase can be tokenized, such as real estate or stocks. For this purpose, the investment must be securely held and used. Now, security tokens aren’t securities because they’re pointless. Security Token (Token), which the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates, is an asset because it represents an asset.
In 2021, the company that issues Bitcoin wallets, Exodus, completed a secure issuance of an SEC-qualified Regulation A token that allowed for the purchase of $75 million shares of common stock to be converted to tokens on an Algorand blockchain. This was the first security of its kind in the United States to issue a regulated digital asset.
Utility Tokens
A utility token is mainly used to provide services within a given network. Filecoin, a program utilized to purchase storage space on a web and secure information, is an example of a utility token.
ETH is also a utility token. It is intended for use in an Ethereum blockchain and virtual machine to pay for transactions. The USTerra stable coin’s utility token is used to maintain a peg to the dollar; it lost on May 11, 2022, because of minting and burning two utility tokens.
Utility tokens can be purchased on exchanges but must be held within the blockchain network to ensure continued operation.
Meme Coins
Meme coins are inspired by a joke or a play on some other cryptocurrency. They typically gain recognition in a brief period, sometimes ginning up interest online by influential individuals or investors looking for a quick buck.
Many refer to the sharp increase in these altcoins over the last few months as “coin season,” with hundreds of these altcoins posting significant percentage gains based on sheer speculation. An initial coin offering is the cryptocurrency industry equivalent of an initial public offering (IPO). A company raising money to launch a coin, app, or service launches an ICO to raise funds.
Famous examples are Dogecoin or ShibaINU.
Governance Tokens
Governance tokens give users certain rights on a blockchain, such as voting for protocol changes or giving a voice to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Because they’re generally native to a private blockchain and used for blockchain purposes, they are utility tokens. Still, they have come to be classified as a separate type because of their meaning.
Popular Altcoins
Ethereum
Just like Bitcoin, you may have heard of Ethereum if you have heard of cryptocurrencies. Ethereum differs from Bitcoin in terms of its origins, which are intended to increase the circulation of cryptocurrencies and enhance the cryptocurrency ecosystem. 24-year-old Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed it in late 2013. Ethereum is not only a completely different cryptocurrency but also an innovative ecosystem.
The Ethereum cryptocurrency serves as the fuel for Ethereum’s ecosystem. Ethereum has the most prominent crypto market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies and the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Ether serves as the fuel for the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum Blockchain aims to enable and run decentralized applications (DApps), which are built on applications known as smart contracts.
Ethereum is an international, open-source platform, like Google’s system for DApps, where developers can access all the tools and environment needed to develop a DApp.
Ethereum developers should learn programming languages specially designed for use in Ethereum smart contracts, namely Solidity and Vyper. There are over 2,000 different DApps in the Ethereum ecosystem, such as games, gambling, identity, decentralized exchanges, and many other financial assets.
Litecoin
Litecoin, a spinoff of Bitcoin, is one of the top altcoins. It was a source-code copy of Bitcoin and offered a faster transaction confirmation time and lower-cost transaction than Bitcoin.
Litecoin was created by former Google employee Charlie Lee in 2011 and was ranked among the world leaders in market capitalization. Due to its similarity to Bitcoin, Litecoin was used as a testing ground for new technology with Bitcoin, such as Atomic Swap, Lightning Network, SegWit, and MimbleWimble.
Litecoin used the Scrypt algorithm as its primary mining algorithm. It was initially created to prevent ASIC programming for an overwhelmingly competitive benefit over miners using CPUs and GPUs, leaving more room for decentralization.
The cryptocurrency community widely regards Litecoin as the first alternative coin. If Bitcoin is the counterpart to digital gold, then Litecoin can be compared to digital silver.
XRP
Ripple is a privately held company constructing a payment and exchange network (RippleNet) on top of a globally distributed ledger database (XRP Ledger).
Ripple’s distinguishing quality from most other cryptocurrencies is that it doesn’t use a conventional consensus algorithm like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Instead, Ripple’s consensus algorithm uses a validator mechanism. Every participant in the network uses an overlapping set of trusted validators (Unique Node List, UNL), which efficiently agree on which transactions occur in what order.
Ripple is a digital asset native to XRP Ledger. It is used as a conduit between asset exchange and settlement – Say, Bank A form Canada wants to transfer USD 10,000 CAD to Bank B in Japan to cover these transactions in the opposite amount of JPY. Instead of converting CAD directly to JPY, the XRP Ledger will convert CAD to XRP from Bank A and, simultaneously, convert XRP to JPY in Bank B. In the example above, the XRP Ledger is the underlying asset or protocol, and XRP is the liquidity pool to facilitate the exchange on the XRP Ledger.
Ripple aims to provide an innovative solution for the use of electronic payments. As it seeks to replace legacy systems for banks, it is known as the Bankers Coin by the crypto community.
EOS
EOS plans to resolve problems associated with the Ethereum network, such as faster transactions and a more developer-friendly environment.
It’s a blockchain platform that can be used for public and private uses, customized to fit the needs of various companies across various segments. Building on the EOSIO model follows established methodologies and programming languages employed by existing applications, not on the blockchain.
EOS uses a delegated proof of stake (DPoS) system for its consensus mechanism. A DPoS system that lets purchasers vote among a list of witnesses for every transaction. The winning witnesses function as super-nodes that can validate transactions and combine them into a consensus. DPoS speeds up the confirmation of commerce on the blockchain. There was a worry that centralization created 21 super-nodes, which were criticized by the community.
Cronos (CRO)
Crypto.org (CRO) is the native token of the Crypto.org Chain. The Crypto.org Chain was created to build a network of cryptocurrency projects and, on the other side, build merchants’ ability to accept crypto as a form of payment. The Crypto.org Blockchain is a high-performing native blockchain platform that makes transactions between crypto users and retailers taking crypto seamless, cost-efficient, and safe.
It was created by the Crypto.com company which does provide a full ecosystem like Binance.
Bottom Line
Altcoins, with thousands of them in existence, continue to rise. While no single coin may ultimately unseat the king of crypto altcoins at this point, altcoins will continue to gain share from the leader even and especially if the total cryptocurrency pie continues to expand.
However, you should note that investing in altcoins, and especially low cap altcoins often do include heavy risks like the total loss of your investment.
*This content does contain an external writer’s work and is written in a style so beginners & experts can profit from it and understand it.
Moritz Pindorek (Moritzpindorek.com)
Social Media, Marketing & Blockchain
Crypto/Web 3 Advisor, Top 10 Crypto Influencer 2022(Forbes Monaco) & Top 10 Entrepreneur 2022 (Forbes Monaco)
Owner and writer for Cryptouserguide.com
