The Evolution of Cryptocurrencies: From Bitcoin to Altcoins

Have you ever wondered what the word altcoin means. How it relates to one of the most infamous cryptocurrencies of all time? Altcoins and Bitcoin have an ongoing story, which this article will summarize for those who are new to cryptocurrencies.

What is Altcoin?

The term altcoin refers to all cryptocurrencies introduced after Bitcoin. In the early days of Bitcoin’s entry into the market, developers forked the open-source code to create new currencies that ended up being interesting issues as people expected. Over time, these Bitcoin alternatives began to deviate further from their original version, with different delivery schedules and privacy features that were attractive and many people became interested in them. Among them are Litecoin (LTC) and Zcash (ZEC), two very important post-development coins that have managed to gain quite a bit.

A long list of Bitcoin-altcoin trading pairs have emerged, and ultimately led to a surge in market activity, with traders taking advantage of the volatility of these crypto assets to earn fairly risky returns. The rise of altcoins and their respective blockchain networks marks an era of experimentation and maturity within the cryptocurrency industry, as the technology has achieved a wider range of use cases. Also, for those interested, here is a detailed analysis of how Bitcoin’s trading decline led to altcoins.

Let’s Go Back to When it all Began

The idea of ​​anonymous cryptocurrencies has been postulated for a long time, but it wasn’t until 2009 that Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency, was first created and captured the world’s attention. Cryptocurrencies began to gain momentum, with Namecoin, Litecoin, Peercoin, etc., continuing for a few years. At the end of 2013, there were over 50 different cryptocurrencies, and by the end of 2014, this number had grown nearly tenfold to over 500. Currently, there are over 20,000 cryptocurrencies in circulation. But how did the financial landscape get to this point?

More specifically, there are 20,268 cryptocurrencies in existence as of July 2022. However, not all of them are active or valuable. After deducting a long list of dead cryptocurrencies, we are left with only about 10,953 active cryptocurrencies today, and the process is ongoing.

What is the number of users?

There are over 300 million cryptocurrency users worldwide, and currently, approximately 18,000 businesses accept some form of cryptocurrency as a payment method, given the legality and regulations in each state.

Thus, in less than a decade, interest in cryptocurrencies has exploded and is growing at an increasingly rapid rate. By the time you read this article, the number of cryptocurrencies already mentioned may already be underestimated, as more ICOs are happening every week. However, the thousands of cryptos we have today can be easily divided into three categories:

As the number of cryptocurrencies grows, so does the number of cryptocurrency exchanges. As of summer 2022, there are 498 exchanges, and the number continues to rise.

Regardless of Altcoins:

Regardless of the changes that altcoins bring to the market and the interests of investors. Bitcoin is at the top in terms of market capitalization, always has been, and still is today. It represents the starting point and has never performed worse than it is now.

All in all, cryptocurrencies took over the world pretty quickly, both with the initial Bitcoin and the altcoins that followed. While there was a volatility worth mentioning, the overall market was only going up, with Bitcoin still leading the pack even today.

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