Published Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, 2:42 pm
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Bitcoin became the world’s first cryptocurrency by virtue of its creation and market capitalization. However, after the major cryptocurrency are several minor ones that are introduced after Bitcoin. The price of these altcoins is mostly moved by the price of Bitcoin. Nevertheless, while some altcoins can make investors extremely rich, some are mere scams.
There are more than 5000 cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin. Then, how do you tell the wheat from the shaft in the esoteric world of virtual assets? There is a lot of media about altcoin even though only a few of them are well known. Before you fall for false advertising and influencers’ tout about an altcoin, there are certain things you must know.
What is an altcoin?
Any cryptocurrency that was created after Bitcoin is an alternative coin. This is usually called “altcoin” or “shitcoin”. Altcoins have a market capitalization of about $1 trillion and represent 63 percent of the cryptocurrency market. Many altcoins were created to challenge the domineering position of Bitcoin by providing solutions to the issues with Bitcoin. Other altcoins are a fork of Bitcoin and they share the Bitcoin algorithm as a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Some altcoins aim to have the same value as fiat currencies or commodities such as precious metals. These altcoins are known as stablecoins and they include Tether (USDT), USD coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD) among others.
Although it is not popular among crypto traders, the first altcoin created was Namecoin. Namecoin was created in 2011 as the first altcoin that was forked from Bitcoin to a decentralized domain. Namecoin was…
