What are Alt coins?

By now, you know that there are more than just a few cryptocurrencies out there. We have more than just Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin was the first one. We thought it to be the only one until more came along that used the blockchain. Any other cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin is what we call altcoins because they are alternatives to Bitcoin.

Altcoins differ from Bitcoin. Some have a different consensus mechanism; others use distribution differently and some allow you to build applications on top of the blockchain. Some of them are not even interesting at all. Some of them just tweak what Bitcoin did in ways that are unimaginative or not very useful.

Most of the altcoins offer little more than Bitcoin. Ethereum cracked the code when it instituted a policy that allows developers to build apps on their platform. This enables the cropping up of applications that are useful and better than what they offer anywhere else.