Altcoins are the other cryptocurrencies launched after the success of Bitcoin. Generally, they sell themselves as better alternatives to Bitcoin. The term "altcoins" refers to all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. As of early 2020, there were more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies by some estimates. According to CoinMarketCap, altcoins accounted for over 34% of the total cryptocurrency market in February 2020.
Many of the altcoins are built upon the basic framework provided by Bitcoin. Thus, most altcoins are peer-to-peer. They try to offer efficient and inexpensive ways to carry out transactions on the Internet. Even with many overlapping features, altcoins vary widely from each other.
Example of Altcoins:
Ethereum is the best-known mining-based altcoin as of February 2020.
Tether (USDT) is by far the most famous and widely used stable coin.
Litecoin is branded as the "silver to Bitcoin's gold" while fundamentally similar in code and functionality to Bitcoin
Bitcoin cash is a cryptocurrency created in August 2017, from a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash increases the size of blocks, allowing more transactions to be processed.
