Bitcoin Forum

I think I know what the difference is but I would like to hear your comments. So I'll leave you with a question:






What's the difference between Tokens and Altcoins?

As I understand it, Altcoins are separate currencies with their own separate blockchain and wallets. Tokens/Colored coins/Digital Assets exist on the same blockchain as its parent, and usually represent a piece of something (See this for a basic explanation of assets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset)). Here is a few other references you can check out: This wiki article (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins),  This in-depth github explanation and resource (https://github.com/Colored-Coins/Colored-Coins-Protocol-Specification), This source code for building on top of the blockchain (http://coloredcoins.org/), and a token/colored coin asset wallet, fully functioning,  here (https://www.coinprism.com/).

Mistercoin-

I'm open to be corrected and resoundingly poked fun at but these are two ways you can create a service and the difference is how tightly the service is bound to the bitcoin machinations.

You can have your own alt-coin which has it's own blockchain and maybe even a different proof system, coin limit, hash difficulty calculator etc. You then use the the coins of that system to represent trades of goods and services directly with its blockchain. There is no "noise" from other transactions and coins have meaning only within that blockchain. Namecoin is one of these.

A token is an ID from a service that sits on top of a blockchain. Usually they say on top of bitcoin, but that's not a requirement, I don't think. You can have a complex system that looks nothing like bitcoin but an ID that has meaning within the service can be stored inside the block chain within a transaction. So you can, say, buy a house and put the deed number into a transaction along with a bitcoin payment, thereby irrevocably linking that transaction to that deed number  in the bitcoin ledger. That deed number has no meaning within the bitcoin protocol; it is a token that provides a proof of a transaction to another, unrelated service.

A simple explanation would be:

Altcoins - are cryptocurrencies much like Bitcoin, but with their own features and original blockchain, while ToKens works as a representation of an asset on top of the blockchain, thus using another layer of the blockchain.

Altcoins each have their own distinct blockchains...

Everybody can give himself any idea about of that it is, Altcoins are copy and modification of protocol Bitcoin
Tokens are part of the cryptocurrency 2.0 is an  protocol different to Bitcoin  with a currency or token system built in, where the token system generates the emergent value to fund the development of the protocol. Examples NXT,Horizon,Counterparty, Etc.... Where its are the core of the platforms and tokens are part of the rest of the system, So could be very easy to create a new coin or token  on that platforms, I mean you dont need be an developer to create an token but you'll be encapsulated to platform unlike of an altcoin. About of more technical definitions you could seek more if you are interested.

As eveybody said, tokens are representations of value inside another currency. This concept is being explored with ethereum, where a person can issue his own tokens, based on ethers. The value that those tokens represents are subjective to the people's opinion on the person that issued them. Think for example a famous person or artist, that issue tokens to reward fans, if the artists goes up in popularity, the tokes are worth more. The term 'net worth' can be LITERALLY implemented with tokens, and we could tell how much a person is worth.