In the world of cryptocurrencies, there is a cryptocurrency term referred to as altcoins.
If you are a beginner who is investing in cryptocurrencies for the first time, then you must know this term.
The main thing is altcoin is a designation for all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.
What is Altcoin, and how does it relate to Bitcoin?
Altcoins stands for alternative coins, or can be interpreted as an alternative coin, i.e. A cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin.
So, every cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin can be referred to as altcoins.
Why are coins other than Bitcoin called altcoins and why is Bitcoin didn’t refer to altcoins?
The answer is simple. Because Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that exists and is the best today.
Therefore, we can call Bitcoin as the main coin. While the other coins are referred to as alternative coins.
Here are some examples altcoins currently in circulation:
- Dogecoin: Dogecoin is altcoins made for the purpose of a joke. Around 2020, Elon Musk often discusses altcoins this on his personal Twitter account and sent the price of Dogecoin soaring.
- XRP: XRP is an altcoin developed by a company called Ripple, hence this alcoin is also often referred to as Ripple. These altcoins are widely used by banks for remittances between countries.
- Monero: Altcoins it is designed to be a “secure, private and untraceable” coin. All transactions that occur in blockchain Monero is only visible to the person sending and receiving it.
- BNB: BNB is altcoins developed by exchange named Binance and became a utility token in exchange the.
Those were just a few examples of altcoins, in fact, there are still thousands more altcoins in circulation today.
Most of the altcoins The price has fallen sharply from when it was first released.
People Are Also Looking For:
Why Do So Many People Create Altcoins?
The question is, why do so many people create altcoins which is mostly useless?
The answer is obvious, namely for personal gain.
As the price of Bitcoin increases, more and more people are interested in investing in the cryptocurrency.
However, the average beginner thinks that the price of Bitcoin is too expensive and prefers to buy altcoins which is still cheap.
In fact, to buy Bitcoin you don’t have to have 1 Bitcoin, but start from Satoshi units (1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 Satoshi).
So you can buy Bitcoin starts from USD 5.
Altcoins Can Never Be Better Than Bitcoin
Every time there altcoins newly released to the public, then one of the mainstay sentences they often utter is “altcoins we are better than Bitcoin”.
“Better than Bitcoin” is usually meant here:
- Faster transaction times than Bitcoin;
- Larger block size than Bitcoin;
- More supply of coins than Bitcoin;
- More efficient use of energy;
- And other “more so”.
The main thing is, altcoins is trying to be “The Next Bitcoin”.
However, from 17,000 altcoins existing (as of February 2022), to date, none can really rival or even come close to Bitcoin in terms of price and market cap.
When this article was written, the price of Bitcoin was 19,812.40,- USD and its market capitalization was $378,946,368,925 USD.
Even Ethereum, altcoin which is second in terms of market capitalization value, its price and market capitalization are far below Bitcoin.
The reason why altcoins can never “beat” Bitcoin is because the issues used to “attack” Bitcoin are no longer relevant.
For example, for the time of the transaction. Lots altcoins who pride themselves on their incredibly fast transaction times, from 5 to 10 seconds.
Whereas in the case of Bitcoin, there is currently a Lightning Network.
By using Lightning Network, you can send Bitcoins in almost instant time.
Are there altcoins that can do that? None.
