#altcoin101

What is an Altcoin?

An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. The word comes from “alternative coin,” meaning these coins were created as alternatives to Bitcoin with different features, technologies, or purposes. Altcoins try to improve on Bitcoin in areas such as transaction speed, privacy, scalability, smart contracts, or decentralized applications. Examples include Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Ripple, Polygon, Dogecoin, and thousands more. Each altcoin aims to solve specific problems, and some are experimental projects still in early development.