Bitcoin Forum

To me the biggest difference is how bitcoins are created. It takes a great deal of investment in time, effort, money and energy just to mine and produce a single bitcoin.
Unlike altcoins, you can't just print a bitcoin out of thin air whenever you want. Any idiot with a PC can create a new crypto altcoin and print an unlimited or nearly unlimited supply for himself to dump onto the market, whenever he wants. But that's not how bitcoin works.

Imagine having a money printer that prints an unlimited amount of dollars anytime you want. You don't have to do shit to earn it. Just enter the amount you want and press the print button. Voila! You are instantly rich. That's basically how garbage like dogecoin, ethereum, solana, XRP, fartcoin, pepecoin, clowncoin, etc. all work. They are just a digital recreation of the unlimited fiat money system but worse, with no discernible value beyond being a high-tech Ponzi scheme.

What are other differences?


https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1280,quality=80,format=auto/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20150110_WBP001_0.jpg
A bitcoin mining facility

Many differences between them.

You forgot that altcoins can have Proof of Work algorithm too, so with PoW altcoins, there were not created from thin air. A big risk is premined PoW coins, you must check this information of PoW altcoins.

Bitcoin is unique by having many following things: PoW, no premine, decentralized network, no censorship, and decentralized developments so no issue if one Bitcoin developer left like how Satoshi Nakamoto left the community and no longer developed Bitcoin Core years ago.

Altcoins are centralized, mass premined coins, hidden premined coins, mint from thin air with smart contracts, centralized, censorship, can die any time because development is centralized in founders and core team members.

Whenever you see a shiny new "project" that is based in some altcoin, always ask yourself: "Why are they not using Bitcoin for this?"

The answer to that, in pretty much almost every case is that the creator of that "project" wants to get your money by issuing their worthless altcoin.

If they work with Bitcoin, then you immediately can tell there's some value in there, because they are trading value for value.

Bitcoin is money, altcoins are a distraction.

Their differences are way more than you actually highlighted. Of course one of them is actually mining and that's thanks to a couple of properties that the bitcoin network possess like it's POW mechanism which is basically proof of work. Other networks do have their mechanisms to like Ethereum which makes use of POS (proof of stake) in contrast to that of bitcoin.

The most important thing that differentiates bitcoin's POW mechanism is it's difficult adjustments and halving protocol.  The bitcoin network actually has one of the best and most efficient difficulty adjustment mechanisms.

satoshi NEVER worked on bitcoin core. .. core is a brand that came about by colluding devs in 2014 creating the brand in 2014, long after satoshis disappearance
also one dev of core can leave without causing big effect. but if all the colluding devs messed up or left, then there would be issues as its the sole 'reference client' for upgrades and protocol changes..  thus would affect 99% of everyone should an issue arise. and yes core are centralised once you look at the devs funding background and their colleague/partnership interactions. they do not act as independent devs, but a collective

we should not just cower down and give blind loyalty/obedience to core as gods/governors of bitcoin, even if thats how they act. we should remain vigilant and scrutinise and peer review them to ensure their decisions do not cross the line.

too many people have just let core take control and cross the line many times of whats best for bitcoin, people whom have become defensive loyalists of core devs.. there have even been events including their sponsored actions to enforce their roadmap proceeds as planned, even when the greater bitcoin community have asked for other options

dont fear scrutinising core devs, dont fear peer reviewing them, dont fear criticising them. its the only way to limit how much they get to control

and dont confuse the allowance of core devs whom let smaller coders to bug test, grammar check code/translations via push requests VS the core devs with github force-merge/commit privileges

its like saying a newpaper is open(to read) but to become a newspaper editor is a closed circle of employees, even if the newspaper has a comment section for the public to leave public comment, moderated critique and moderated newsmedia suggestions

Correct, satoshi released the original software, which was simply called Bitcoin.


There's at least 4 other independent Bitcoin clients that do not create a fork that could be used instead:

https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin

https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-node

https://github.com/bitcoinj/bitcoinj

caveat being they follow core as a reference client
bitcoiners cant defend against core issues by using the other brands, if the other brands just blindly copy code changes across from core.. so we need to ensure core dont overstep

also when core make a significant change but the other brands dont blindly copy the change, forks can happen where the other brand is treated as an altcoin, due to core dominance treating core as the sole/central brand of bitcoin('core' name is not coincidence, its the core for a reason)

the other brands are only 'independent' in regards to the aesthetics of the GUI, they have no dominance/power to make their own proposals

why altcoins do not want to hype up bitcoin any more is because they want to replace bitcoin they do not want to work with bitcoin they want to work against bitcoin you will notice that a lot of projects tend to promote their altcoins like it is the new bitcoin or it is better than bitcoin when in reality it is not even anywhere close

bitcoin will always be superior to altcoins no matter what your preference is you can buy and use altcoins but always approach with risk

The problem in the space right now is that, there are just so many scam project in the market, else, some altcoins made some people to earn millions of dollars on their investment too. Bitcoin have it's unique properties, not to be compared with altcoins because it is already a stepping stone for those other altcoins out there.

Some altcoins like litecoin and BNB have fixed supply, but why people don't trust them like Bitcoin is because they can hold larger percentage of the coins for themselves and declare another for the public. Only Bitcoin is very transparent and this is why altcoins are still struggling to match up with the standard Bitcoin has set. Bitcoin is the foundation cryptocurrency and this is the key difference between Bitcoin and altcoins. Altcoins look up to it for growth and improvement.

Many of these Altcoins having fixed supplies actually do think it’s all about fixed supply, yes I can say one of the many characteristics of bitcoin blockchain having so much attraction is the supply been fixed as such after mining ends the scarcity which has made some precious metals valuable also will have it to be valuable and pricey. But it is not all about having the fixed supply that creates demand. Demand is actually created through the chain’s utility, bitcoin offers so much utility for been used everyday like been a digital solution to financial crisis through peer to peer transactions. Most of these Altcoins with such fixed supplies do not actually have any utility as such the fixed supply isn’t enough to create any utility.

The only few Altcoins that even get little attention have been those trying to scale the network by making transactions faster and cheaper than bitcoin but still due to some not having a truly decentralized network many do not go for them too, which makes bitcoin clears above them all

About fixed supply of altcoins, I want to say one funny fact about them.

Like BNB, they created the token with mass total supply, then they do buy back and burn program, to reduce their token circulating supply. It's quite funny that buy back and burn program is used to create hype and they can do a more easier way, create token with smaller total supply.

Do you see their intentional plan by doing these steps?
If create initial mass supply works, token has very high price, they would be very rich. If it works like this, they will not do any buy back and burn program.

Different between bitcoin and altcoin are many but few to mention.
Now let me start by saying that, bitcoin is the first and the largest cryptocurrency.
Secondly bitcoin has a wide adoption,high liquidity,high security and has a limited supply.
On the other hand altcoin,is an alternative cryptocurrency,with a variable supply,smaller user base,low liquidity and different features and use case.

I don't find it funny that altcoins create large supplies and use buyback and burn strategies. This is even a great strategy and BNB is the pioneer of this idea to create scarcity and helping their token increase in value.

The biggest difference between bitcoin and altcoins is: satoshi did not create bitcoin with the intention of turning it into a business or investment tool to make a profit. He simply wanted to create a peer-to-peer currency with a finite supply to overcome the shortcomings of fiat. Meanwhile, altcoins are created for business purposes, profits...It can be said that the purpose of both is not the same so the comparison is also lame.

Altcoins can be traded with Bitcoin in an attempt to earn more crypto. You are in an exchange market competition against other traders where a small % of skilled traders win long term and most other people lose. This exciting competition helps identify the rare altcoins with long-term value and utility based on unique features which Bitcoin lacks. People who hate all altcoins frequently have a blind rage which is similar to racism against other humans, since they fail to see some things cannot be done with Bitcoin alone.

Well something most people dont comment on is the face that Bitcoin has no "Board of management"
no select few sitting at the table reporting to the leader/CEO etc. [Decentralised]

Altcoins bar a few all have a creator/owner/CEO/leader who is directing the operations of said Altcoin,
they can decide to simply create more of any altcoin and can decide and control any aspect of the
coins development and direction with the sole goal of turning a profit.

Many scam projects that have taken from their investors as much more than they have given. Generally, in the altcoins market a huge number of those in it have lost so much compared to the few that claim to have made some profits making the rounds that altcoins had made many people millionaires overnight, a number partly made up of the core developers. But has made many investors rich than any altcoin, comparing bitcoin to altcoins is like making comparison between gold and bronze.

Altcoins don't have that much.. you know. Ideals in them.
Mostly, they even can't offer a good utility - although we don't need to say that about all of them.
And if a person says SOL or ETH or big caps are garbage - that's a big statement to say the least, because they propelled their appropriate niches much and much forward.

Altcoins are centralized and can be manipulated by the dev but bitcoin is decentralized and open source with the most efficient and secured network. Bitcoin is limited in supply and the halving event makes it very unique because it reduces the miners reward and that will make the demand to be high with lower supply. Bitcoin is a store of value.

Bitcoin used to be way easier to mine, so it's not a difference that was always relevant. Right now, I'd say I agree about mining difficulty and the amount of resources it takes to create Bitcoin. But I'd also say what makes it different is that it's older than other coins (and thus was way more novel than altcoins are compared to Bitcoin), it's more well-known and more respected in institutional investment circles. Bitcoin is also more universally applicable than many other altcoins which were created for specific purposes as tokens.

It is not possible to accurately describe the difference between Bitcoin and "altcoins" as a single topic. The code for BCH, for example, is extremely similar having been created by a fork of the same code base. The reputation and perceived value, compared to Bitcoin, are dramatically different. XRP (Ripple) has code which is radically different, and is centralized by a massive 100% initial premine. Somehow their reputation among the corrupt bankers has been growing stronger recently.

SOL and Tron, for example, try to compete with ETH as a platform for creating endless more tokens and you can easily start to see why some people passionately dislike all altcoins.

there are many differences between bitcoin and altcoin, but the most basic is that bitcoin has a limited supply, is decentralized, and is much more secure than altcoin. this difference makes bitcoin much more trustworthy than altcoin-- and it makes why you will never see people lose badly because of being scammed by bitcoin... while with altcoin you have seen how much loss is caused by altcoin scams, and it makes why people who invest their money in altcoins should really see the risk of the altcoin they invest in, because it could be a scam.

There are hundreds of differences between Bitcoin and altcoins, especially Bitcoin, which is decentralized, has limited supply, high liquidity, high amounts of investors, and requires huge amounts of time and money to mine. Altcoins are centralized, have high supply, are controlled by third parties, have low liquidity, have limited investors, and can be easily mined or increased in supply.

Bitcoin is the only crypto that has true decentralization, which simply means that there are no founders, no executive team or CEO at the top controlling it like you have with all the shitcoins. There are currently more than 100,000 bitcoin nodes spread all across the world, each controlled by independent persons who have no affiliation with one another. In addition, there are over 1 million unique individuals mining bitcoin throughout the world. Which makes bitcoin the most decentralized protocol by far and it's not even close. The bitcoin computer network is more powerful then all the magnificent seven tech companies (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc) put together.

A person or a CEO that is controlling your money, is always tempted to embezzle or pilfer it from you in various ways. Unless the CEO happens to be your close trusted personal friend or relative, they are almost guaranteed to do. Unfortunately that is human nature. The large amounts of money involved is just too tempting not to take advantage of. Think of someone like Elon Musk and all the crazy shenanigans that goes on with his companies. To me Tesla stock is just another shitcoin. Like altcoins, stocks are highly manipulated by insider trading, by those who can issue new shares out of thin air at anytime to dump onto the market, which dilutes the value of your holdings.

But with bitcoin you don't have to trust anyone because no one controls it. That is what makes bitcoin so special, and a truly revolutionary idea.

This is true.

At the end of the day, Bitcoin is basically a protocol. Like email, or FTP, but for money.

How great is that?, I think many people around the world still don't grasp this concept and treat Bitcoin as a regular ticker on the stock market...

The thing is that email will never go away, and by the same logic, Bitcoin will never go away.

All those other altcoins will fade to obscurity, like many companies. But Bitcoin, email, etc, will continue.

Just checked your signature lol

I completely (or at least partially agree), can only add that you can sybil shitcoin networks to get a shitcoin airdrop, and then swap the shitcoin for BTC on a CEX.

It shows that they're not completely useless if gotten through those means, since they can be converted to Bitcoin which is a better Cryptocurrency when it comes to investment purpose, the mistake people make is trying to see them as a store of value and hold for a longer period to get profits, they'll definitely point the middle finger at you anddump before you'll know it.

 Instead of using my hard earned money to risk on this coins and regret later, I'll rather get them through airdrops and swap or convert to Bitcoin, it's another cool way of adding to ones portfolio; i mean for those holding Bitcoin, their are some risks that are meant to be avoided and some that are worth it, buying Bitcoin is that risk that's worth every penny.

Exactly right.

As I mentioned before, if you simply ask "why are they not using Bitcoin?" to any of these "projects" you immediately get the answer. It's because they want your Bitcoin for their shitcoin. They know that Bitcoin is more valuable, and they are happy to trade their worthless token for it.

It has happened multiple times, for example here in the forum when Vitalik launched Ethereum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=428589.0). You can see that they started selling their altcoin right away. No proof of work like Bitcoin, just selling air.

To be honest, it is not a problem because there are many people who might have a different view and in essence everyone wants wealth in any way they do. Apart from whatever scheme we mean, but if you want a little more honest the presence of the coin that you mention is a step to make crypto even greater like now. This industry will not develop if only Bitcoin is the only one that exists and I am sure it will not show the greatness as we see today.

But in a simpler case I agree that Bitcoin is one of the more relevant innovations and may not be able to match its perfection. Maybe it takes more but we will see one of the best of the development of Bitcoin who has been towards rapid progress as it is now.

The biggest difference Bitcoin is decentralized while altcoins are mostly centralized.

From decentralization and centralization, it can affect the whole thing.

Nope.

If someone choose cryptocurrency based on privacy preference, Monero is better than Bitcoin.

If someone choose cryptocurrency based on cheap fees and fast transaction, Nano is better than Bitcoin. (https://cryptomus.com/blog/top-10-crypto-with-lowest-transaction-fees)

But, based on overall preference, definitely Bitcoin wins.

I can imagine that, but unfortunately I don't work in the US Federal Reserve and I don't have access to the money printing machine. ;D


I can see that you have some ideas about how to name several new memecoins, that might be launched on Pump.Fun. ;D

Jokes aside, maybe you should learn more about Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake protocols.
OP, you have a Member forum rank. This means that you are not a total newbie. Please don't post forum threads about topics, that have been discussed a million times on the forum. The topic about the difference between BTC and altcoins has been discussed a million times before. You don't add anything new to the discussion. The argument about "Bitcoin having scarcity, while altcoins can be created out of thin air" has been repeated a million times.

Agreed. It all boils down to preferences and the key features a person is looking for, especially if it's for the business or a project of his own, he would definitely look for a chain with transactions cheaper than on BTC or if he is going full privacy mode, Monero would be his solution.
Nothing wrong with picking something different, but it should be noted why and why not.

Yes, realistically speaking, anyone that have lost some money through Bitcoin, it could be that they were scammed or they never had a proper knowledge about Bitcoin before they invested, which lead them to sell off so quickly even before they could make profit. Apart from that, anyone that have invested into Bitcoin and hold it securely for a long term, they would make profit, whereas when you invest into some altcoins for a long time, you might just wake up to see that your capital have deprecated so badly and may never appreciate again.

You sounded like someone who hates anything related to altcoins. I do too but the fact remains, people love it because it's the fastest way for people to make money from the market and the truth remain not everyone will want to buy Bitcoin but fun fact, nobody hate Bitcoin and that's okay. You can hate altcoins but people who see what you don't see will eventually buy it and hold it, beside even as they are garbage people profit from it and all good.

The difference I was expecting, you never pointed it out, Bitcoin isn't altcoin and altcoins can't never be like Bitcoin, the level of trust in Bitcoin supercedes every other altcoins combine, Bitcoin is too trusted and that's why you see institutional guys all buying the ones they can see around but at the same time, the same altcoins you call garbage are other coins institutional investors has diversify their portfolio into and they are all doing good, what is good got goose is also good for the gander.

That's what I usually tell people particularly newbie investors that you just can't lose in investing in bitcoin except you are not that patient with your investment aside being none knowledgeable about bitcoin.  It's weird to know that there are persons that can risk holding an altcoin for a long time than directing such funds to BTC where the profit for hodling is guaranteed and worthwhile.

If you can't adhere to hodl for a long span then btc isn't for you. Bitcoin investment unlike altcoins is a project that demands patience. But the impatience of some investors is what drives them to gamble their money with altcoins especially those filled with market hype.

I get your point Bitcoin and altcoins is really different even though they were both a cryptocurrencies, there was a huge difference on Bitcoin compared to other it almost like it was on a different category, even on the market it has a different movement, price etc. Bitoin production is mostly on Bitcoin, it is being made on mining, unlike other altcoins in the market but there are still some altcoins that have limited supply as well, and there are some that also involve mining you could just see most of the layer 1 or layer 2. Networks are also doing some kind of mining.  

It's kinda easy to say, but it wasn't really that easy to do, maybe on meme tokens mostly since there were no utilities some guy could easily just create it and dump it on other and earn a huge amount of money, but it is going to work everytime? not really unless someone is going to buy your token, your not going to dump anything if there was no liquidity. So if you see some kid getting 20k$ on meme token it involved some kind of luck ofcourse.

Bitcoin for sure is the best cryptocurrency and probably everybody is going to agree with that, but altcoins is already here and there were nothing we could do about that, I mean a lot of altcoins have a huge utility and actually solve some kind of problem that is actually useful, so I dont really think they are all scam, or ponzi. We all made a profit on altcoins at some point.

Yep, some good thoughts here, agree!

The one biggest difference between bitcoin and altcoins is that you can recreate altcoins, but you cannot recreate digital scarcity. It can only be invented once. Nobody would rather have a replica of sound money, apart from speculation, with the hope that they can have more of that sound money in the future.

You can have an abundance of altcoins, but you can only have 21 million bitcoins.

I guess this explains why, Bitcoin has over the years be way ahead, standing the test of time.
Whilst altcoins can move up and down in quick succession, Bitcoin trends are somewhat reliable.

Bitcoin is a digital gold standard and a store of value while Altcoin is to provide cases upon Bitcoin design

Bitcoin is actually superior to digital gold, which actually is a different thing. There are companies that offer literally digital gold, as in, you can buy a certain amount of gold, and they take care of it for you. That way you don't have to deal with the physical problems of gold.

Of course, you have to trust that they actually hold that amount of gold for you.

But Bitcoin is different. You don't have to trust anyone, you can verify if the amount of Bitcoin you bought is under your control.

Bitcoin provides proof, whereas any other system like digital gold doesn't, or require trust in a third party. Big difference.

Another great advantage of bitcoin - you can buy and sell it directly, peer-to-peer without the need for any centralized exchange or KYC. To me that is true decentralization.

You can't do that with any altcoin. All these poopcoins love to boast and advertise themselves as being decentralized while possessing none of the qualities of decentralization. That is called fraud.

Why not - I've done it before, even directly without involving any exchanges. I guess it just depends on how you trade and how you work around it - but I still agree bitcoin is the single best decentralization. Bitcoin has something that other altcoins may not have - one of which is the trust of its users and ease of use cases. But the average developer considers bitcoin incomplete with all its advantages - that's why they create altcoins to complement bitcoin's shortcomings so that users can have an alternative.

How did you do that? Without any exchanges? I find that hard to believe.

In theory you could trade altcoins peer to peer, but in practice does it happen on any significant scale? No.
Without well-known and established P2P platforms like you have for bitcoin, peer to peer non-kyc trading is not a feasible option.

That is why websites like ebay exists, to match buyers and sellers with whatever you are buying or selling.
Otherwise your only other option is go around knocking on people's doors asking if anyone is interested in trading your Pokemon cards, Rolex watch, or what have you.








 

You spit facts each time you lay it down and the rest of us are picking up on it.

I don’t really grasp the concept of colluding devs though. Could that mean some kind of an integrated system that works to the security and integrity of the network?
If that be the case; just how secure was Bitcoin or what was the case with it when it was initially created by Satoshi Nakamoto, through the years it endured before 2014?

other difference that always makes me concerned is that, altcoin can't thrive without VC backing and VC backing always get big chunk of the altcoin, basically ready to dump on the retailer while BTC is free to acquire as long as you have the mining power.
that's pretty stark difference and these centralized holding is a threat on its own because there's one single point of failure for us the holders where the VC can just dump and our coin become worthless coin due to increase in circulating supply, but with BTC, it's pretty static, with circulating supply rise on a pretty obvious basis.

What do you mean by digital gold standard? Does Bitcoin look like gold to you? This is the result of learning from Google, you fail to understand what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is bitcoin, gold is gold. Both are different. Bitcoin is decentralized, secure, limited supply, and gives freedom to its users. That is different compared to gold.

You better learn again about what Bitcoin is, because you fail to understand the most basic thing like this.

It's just how it is, many out there call BTC a digital gold and the discussions about it are going on and on, we've had enough threads to do it here, but - they do have some similarities, and people do like analogies, especially when they are not too knowledgable on the matter and they need something to compare this unknown concept for themselves.

Any coin nowadays can't be propelled without being in trend => getting much of the funds rolling to get forward and push to maintain the precedent rolling.
Alas, that's how it is nowadays, while BTC remains as stable as it was.

And if it is about selling you can even sell your coins anywhere but when it comes to advantage in price there is no price that can compete with bitcoin because bitcoin is currently on fire and there is no way that any coin can compete and even in price there is no way and decentralized is better than anything centralized so there is profit in all but quantity matters.


And some you will still see them in most of the exchanges but the one you will see them the more is in centralized exchanges because it's mostly bitcoin that focused on decentralized exchanges so there is no need for what ever either centralized or decentralized this no much difference.

The value of BTC will only grow from there, it's obvious.
That's why our liquidity should pour into it mainly because there is much potential still regarding the possible price that we would see in the decade to come.

It makes sense on why alts are alternative because BTC is already there, the first crypto to be created but only lack on some features, so alts supplies it. Alts are on a different category and then I'd say that their user base is still high, same goes to individual alts. This makes their liquidity high as well.

You are right when you say that alts has variable supply because they can have a burning feature and others like a change in mechanism. Some alts still has a limited supply like Bitcoin. Like we said earlier, BTC is the first, so I wouldn't wonder anymore on why its adoption is much wider and it is the largest crypto up to date. Security and supply has nothing to do with that though.

Generally speaking, people need alternatives no matter what.
BTC can't exist on the market solely leading the way, people need to have alternatives in that regard too, no matter how great BTC is and how it dominates the market.
Liquidity should go from one place to another, and alts provide that. As well as some features that you mentioned.

All things related to investment decisions whether in Bitcoin or others as far as I understand all of that must be based on understanding even though it is not too deep about it and I admit that it is also everyone's right to choose and of course it is right. But, I have my general view that along with the journey of someone's investment, sooner or later they will also know for themselves which is actually the best that works for them, not the one that eats away at their own finances for various reasons.

Yep. Everybody chooses what suits them best, and it's great to find such a coin / project.
BTC can be that and even more, but it's not the only one.
 ;)

Keep in mind 80% or more of the tokens of the average poopcoin are held by whales and insiders. So whenever you see an altcoin pumping by a large amount it is almost always caused by whales and insiders injecting large amounts of liquidity to pump up the price to get retail excited to buy in just before dumping on them. The suckers fall for it every time. This kind of insider manipulation is common in the stock market but is much worse in the poopcoin casino.





Another thing about altcoins is that they are not seen as a long-term store of value (like bitcoin is) but as a means to make a quick buck.
The average shitcoiner has the attention span of a bipolar 9 year old child and will cycle in and out of different altcoins like changing their dirty underwear.

Whenever a shiny new altcoin attracts their attention, they will dump whatever they are in and go to the next shiny new shitcoin.
So you cannot rely on altcoins as a long-term store of value. Which is why some predictions of ethereum going to $10,000 are not realistic,
because that would require large numbers of people holding onto ethereum for many years, which they generally do not do. The unlimited supply of tokens doesn't help either..

99% of shitcoiners are day traders and casino gamblers not long-term investors.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you talking about altcoins becoming number 1 and replacing Bitcoin? Or are you talking about the altcoin price surpassing the Bitcoin price (+$100k)? In any case, altcoins can't come close to Bitcoin. Everyone sees what's happening even with Ethereum and Solana, the altcoins that people consider the safest. Centralized coins can't be trusted. Bitcoin is not valuable just because it's produced in limited numbers. What makes it valuable is that it's different from simple copies, it's more secure, it has a real store of value.

Both are considered cryptocurrencies, but bitcoin is built more on perfection as it always satisfies the long of a person when it comes to financial security, altcoins are only an alternative to bitcoin. However, though they have some common uses, but bitcoin offers more legitimacy and security, while altcoins are more seen as scams and unreliable, most especially those altcoins that are newly launched and developed in the market.

Most altcoins, if not all, are basically a company running a project, but without any of the constraints, checks and balances of a real company.

Basically it is the riskiest form of investment. Most altcoins are created just for the founders to get money off people that want to be rich.

It's almost like a casino but without the rules.

Yeah, there's actually a huge difference in their creation process,both are still cryptocurrencies but in their technological and design creation lies so much difference in application and functioning.Since Bitcoin is the king to all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is aimed at prioritizing in some of it's features like that of decentralization and security while some altcoins may compromise on these and become vulnerable to cyber attack and inconveniences.

really spot on with the compromise of decentralization.

these altcoin sometime trying to brand themselves as decentralized meanwhile most of governance power usually being held by the founder of the altcoin.

some altcoin trying to make governance through consensus or DAO but from their tokenomic, the majority of governance token belong to the founder and the VCs meanwhile the community only held as little as 10% of supply or even less.
the decentralization of these altcoins mostly are just illusion, while with BTC you got real decentralization.

Yes, absolutely.

Even Ethereum, which many people think is one of the best altcoins, was premined, is centralized, and is basically not hard money, as you can print as much as you want.

And yet, many people try to get rich quick with altcoins, it's basically an unregulated casino.

Bitcoin offers all the benefits that you need for hard money. That's really it. You can't really compete with that.

Most altcoins are just a way for the founders to get rich quick by getting the money from people that want to get rich quick...

It's a bit funny actually when you think about it :)

Well the biggest difference is al of the coins weren't first, weren't created by an anonymous person of group of people, nor doe they have the level of programmers that bitcoin has and has had in the past days. I mean that's what it comes down to.  Course for the few coins outside of bitcoin that have utility, like Monero..well the difference is what is anonymous and one isn't.  I don't see Monero has a competitor, never will get that high in value, but what it does best will ensure it's future.  If bitcoin was anonymous, it would implode.  Maybe not ruin it entirely but, it would be bad.

Most of the coins just follow the flow and funds pouring into them, that's their main gist to blow off value-wise.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, searches for something else - to blow off adoption-wise.

Btc's scarcity is a major factor in its value. However not all altcoins are the same some like ethereum have unique functionalities such as smart contracts which enable decentralized applications. The real difference lies in security, decentralization and long term viability. Many altcoins experiments with governance models, scalability solutions and efficiency improvements that bitcoin lacks. While some projects are indeed worthless cash grabs others push innovation forward in the blockchain space.

There are other factors to consider as well, for example Ethereum is not really hard money because they can print how much they want.

It was also premined, and it is centralized. I mean, I don't think Ethereum can even be considered money, maybe it is just a computing platform that you pay to use, which is what they call "gas".

In the end, you can perform other operation on the blockchain, but really only moving money has to be on the blockchain, because most other applications can be done centralized in a database, and they would perform much better.

It's only when you need to be able to resist anyone trying to block you that you need something like a blockchain, and money is basically the only application for that.

Yep.
Nobody also enforces you to work with said alts. They are just there as alternatives to some cases, just like BTC is envisioned to be an alternative to traditional systems in the world.

bitcoin's design makes it the most secure and decentralized crypto and that's why I trust it over most altcoins. But I also recognize that some atlcoins bring innovation whether through smart contracts, faster transactions or energy efficient consensus models. Not all are scams some aim to solve real world problems that bitcoin isn't designed for. I stick to btc for long term value but i also keep an open mind about blockchain's potential beyond it.

I wouldn't even give too much credit to the mining of Bitcoin as a distinction between it and altcoin, who cares? Almost 20 million Bitcoins have already been mined, so the difficulty of mining doesn't affect anything related to its economics anymore unless we are only fooling ourselves.

However, Bitcoin and altcoins are not just mates, so don't let us compare much. Is it the pioneer title? Reliability? The true decentralization, unlike the rubbish we see these days? The preference of the big guys and institutional bodies? Name it. Bitcoin is just incomparable!

Both have their cases, but yeah, regarding the metrics we are talking about - it's not even close.
Although, we must admit where liquidity pours once the BTC DOM factor falls off.. And the back to the king  8)

In a simple term, Bitcoin can be verify and you don't have problem to doubt anything but can you really do that with altcoins? No. Most of altcoins are centralized and decision making is usually by the team only, they make it looks like you have a say in it but they dominate the vote with their bags so that the rest of the community don't have the power to determine the votes, forget about all this their Dao and community call, it's the team that determines everything.

Altcoins can't be trusted, but for people that want to risk? It's their choice. It's their money to do what they want but then it's better to have Bitcoin by your side as spare tire, don't put your eggs in altcoins because having just 10x from Bitcoin  a year is worth something, you can't get that from any stock assets, even S&P wouldn't give you that a year, there is nothing bad in having Bitcoin even if you prefer altcoins than Bitcoin itself.

The difference is the reason Bitcoin was created and the reason altcoins were created. Altcoin were not created because they wanted to improve the system or to add to the existing system. They were just created because some greedy people wanted to make money. The rate at which altcoins are getting launching is becoming a problem as it is taking the credibility of the industry away. Anybody can now create any coin that they want and scam people yet nothing is going to be done to the people that launched the cryptocurrency as they will claim they did not force anyone to invest which is true but their actions of scamming people still needs to be punished therefore if you do not want to become a victim, we should be careful what we invest into.

An alternative of what really?

Altcoins these days are hardly built on any potential, anyone can just pick up devices and begin to create whatever they feel like, carry out promotions, sell and dump the project afterward. Altcoins are potential risks, they serve no alternative all they do is collect money from investors who seek the project as the right source to multiply their money forgetting it's not of certainty, unlike Bitcoin where profits must be compulsorily made out of as long the investor follows due pattern.

In my view, the biggest difference between Bitcoin and altcoins is the foundation behind Bitcoin, which is not seen in altcoins. The creation of Bitcoin was a response to the traditional finance system, which holds people by the neck and controls them as it wants. Bitcoin gives them freedom from that system and introduces the concepts of decentralization and censorship resistance, while altcoins are made to prioritize their goals, such as increasing transaction speed and catering to market niches, etc. Altcoins do not maintain the same level of trust and reliability as Bitcoin. Additionally, Bitcoin has a limited supply, while altcoins are abundant, you can create as many as you want, which again cannot compete with the value of Bitcoin.

Hmmm, that's interesting.Well, the difference between these two is simply Bitcoin is Bitcoin and Altcoin is Altcoin. Hahaha 😆 I am just kidding.

But anyway let's talk about the difference. Bitcoin is totally different, it has a decent design, like there Bitcoin has made up for an additional purpose, as well as their scarcity and privacy set, which makes them more prominent in the terms of statistics. While Altcoin is just made up for a better version of Bitcoin, it is like to fill the loophole behind the framework. But the fact is that these Altcoins did nothing all of them are trying to pretend to be good, but in reality, all are just a dawn of risks in the terms of value worth...

Big difference.
A bitcoin investor will never have to worry how it will go in the future.
An altcoin investor will worry about how the market's volatility does with the chosen altcoin for its behavior and also the behavior of its developers.

I think the comparison of mining and how coins are generated is not the biggest factor or difference between Bitcoin and altcoins. I think the key point is the market dominance is Bitcoin is 60% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. I have other threads on my profile about the lack of utility provided by altcoins.

Compulsory? This isnt really that something that you can point or mandate on, on which price or value itself will really be that definitely be basing up on the demand itself by the community and some other factors as well like whales and institutions but we do know that this isnt something that can be easily manipulated though but there are indeed tendencies. Speaking about altcoins on what you had elaborated then we can really be able to say that it isnt really that all are shit, lets say 90% of them are trash but we cant deny that when it comes to other altcoins or projects on which it does have that utility on which this is something which is really that relevant.

This is where some investors do really that support and invest into it and there's nothing we can do. Anything besides Bitcoin will really be considered to be alternative and even we should accept that they are really that having that much better features in comparing into the father of all cryptocurrencies but utility speaking then i dont really see any issues with that yet we can be able to make out transactions without any problems or hiccups, except when theres a market congestion.  :D

That's the difference investment-wise.
But I agree with you, no nerve is put in BTC as much as with some alts.
However, they are still a way to interact with the market and do business ;)

They say Bitcoin is unstable, highly volatile and all that but, when you relate that to altcoin, it’s always hyper in all these characteristics. The worst about altcoin is, should some of them dump, they never come up. It’s got next to zero securities on it or even negatives. Altcoin investments are many at times driven by greed, a greed that pushes investor to invest little with hopes of reaping huge amounts and some people get there, very few of them which are on the development team, reaping off regular folks.

That can be said about most new alts emerging here and there, but would it be the same talking about LTC, SOL, and others? I don't think so.
They are all big enough to withstand many hits and some more.

I think Bitcoin can be seem as more stable than some fiat currencies...

The thing with Bitcoin is that there is no central government that decides how much to print of it, so at least that part of the equation is not volatile at all.

Other currencies have that volatility, which depends on the government.

...Is that they are altcoins?

Seriously, I have seen enough altcoins to know one thing for sure, nothing is ever going to come as secondary to bitcoin. They are all shitcoins created to make the creators rich unlike bitcoin whose creator decided to go underground.

Any coin declaring itself to be the next "bitcoin killer" is a FAD. No such thing will probably come in the near future.

They are nothing nearer to Bitcoin killers, but they kill themselves by low quality ideas for their project launches, and lack of technical capability to build up their projects, infrastructures and also important to say they lack of good financial knowledge to design their coin/ token's nomics well like Bitcoin.

History proves it with thousands of died altcoins, I don't arbitrarily say it without evidence.
How many cryptocurrencies failed?

 (https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-cryptocurrencies-failed)Bitcoin is not a stable coin and won't become a stable coin.

How is the 21 million Bitcoin cap defined and enforced? (https://blog.lopp.net/how-is-the-21-million-bitcoin-cap-defined-and-enforced/)

Government attacks, regulations are more easily affect on centralized projects than decentralized projects. Bitcoin is a decentralized project and blockchain.

Whatever altcoins are experiencing today, Bitcoin has experience it in the past. I think it's safe to say that altcoins are even lucky the way I'm seeing it. To sell Bitcoin back then, there was a very limited exchanges available that you can buy and sell Bitcoin, some where hacked, some loss to scammers and many people and some couldn't because everything is different but look at what altcoins is benefit but they are not doing any better, thus is why Bitcoin will always comes first.

There is nothing any altcoin will want to do now that Bitcoin hasn't seen today and yet they were able to be where it's today but even ethereum that is the father of altcoins is not moving like the way Bitcoin is moving and yet it's one of the most controversial altcoins in the media, they are always here for this and there for other things but their yearly growth is negative, even the new ones launching are repeating the same thing like it's now a daily routine.

Here is a simple list to explain why bitcoin is so different and unique from every shitcoin in existence.


https://iili.io/2yNRDt2.md.jpg (https://freeimage.host/i/2yNRDt2)



That is why Wall Street loves shitcoins because they possess all the characteristics of traditional stocks.
But unlike stocks you can scam people with altcoins much more easily, without the need to invest tens of millions of dollars to create a real viable product or service.

Yes, it is true, most of these altcoins/shitcoins were created just to make the creators rich and that is clearly different from Bitcoin. I even saw most of those creators eventually put their money into Bitcoin, and from here we can conclude that the only one that has certainty for the future is Bitcoin. I even heard from an acquaintance of Changpeng Zhao, and he is one of the founders of a very famous crypto project and even cex, aka CZ, he said that he only believes in Bitcoin, while in the media I saw that he said he only believes in Bitcoin and Bnb, even so I am sure that he will eventually only believe in Bitcoin, CMIIW.

Sources : -  Coinstats   - CZ Binance’s Smart Crypto Portfolio – Bitcoin and BNB Only (https://coinstats.app/news/3f11cac6690936f92373505c350389905513200fa0518f7204bf7283317389ec_Revealed-CZ-Binances-Smart-Crypto-Portfolio--Bitcoin-and-BNB-Only/)
               - Wikipedia  - Changpeng Zhao (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changpeng_Zhao)
               - Coindesk   - Justin Sun Is Retiring From Tron – But Not Crypto (https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/12/17/justin-sun-is-retiring-from-tron-but-not-crypto)

Doing business in the market like trading? I also do that but I am not like the others who are obsessed with it. I'm done being obsessed with the market through it but I still do it but unlike before, I have minimized my losses from there already. Someone who keeps on interacting in the market through it and still does business is doing it nicely. There should be some thoughts that investing in Bitcoin is the best strategy than trading. Well, some alts are also good because I hold some but it should be put first and prioritized.

Yep, in that way.
And I agree with you - BTC should be the main focus, while alts are like a side hustle that lies within your main part of the portfolio.
I am happy that you adapted and minimized your risks and losses.

Excessive want of profits contributes to much failure and many times investors who are extreme lovers of altcoins without a push backward to save themselves from constant loss. Anyone who invests in Altcoins typically wants to see their investment make X10, even at times when they see X2 of their investment they still want to hold down their investment, wondering if they know that most altcoins are dead as soon as they take a big dumb, chances of getting back up is relatively powered to nothing at the end.

One word - greed.

It pushes people down the spiral and projects into the abyss as well.
When it's in control - you are in danger.

This is the point I try to make sometimes. Bitcoin has really matured enough to the standards of other top fiat currencies to an extent in terms of its stability. As for the volatility, many fiat currencies around the world do experience volatility too, maybe reason why people are not so concentrated in them is because most individuals are already used to the money and are using it domestically, so they might not really know it's worth and value history, or care less.

I will take Naira for instance and how it has fluctuated over the past year. Within last year, Naira was around 800 naira per dollar around January 2024, by September the same year, Naira hit around ₦1,600 per dollar, by October the same year, Naira was around ₦1,650 per dollar and by November, it saw it's highest fluctuations hitting almost ₦1,700 per dollar and now it is around ₦1,530 per dollar. This is an example with just Nigerian Naira to dollar exchange rate.

I know there are countries whom have experienced worst volatility especially within the African continent, but reason why many aren't talking about it is because these currencies are not worth anywhere close to Bitcoin and such fluctuations might not see any drastic change in prices like a bitcoin will, particularly at individual level. Hence the reason why the talk have been centered on bitcoin but the fact that Bitcoin isn't the only currency that can experience either short term or long term volatility cannot be overemphasized.



There is nothing like 'Bitcoin killer' and there would not be one anytime soon. No altcoins have shown any trajectory or market potentials to beat bitcoin anytime soon. My fav used to be Solana but Solana has given too much access to shitcoins that have influenced its growth negatively, although analysts say it will help the coin grow in the future but for now, no coin has shown that prospect or prosperity to kill bitcoin or anything of such.

Yeah, treat it that way. ALts should be just for side hustles but the main attraction of our portfolios should be with Bitcoin. And it has never been wrong but always proven that having Bitcoin as a part of our portfolios is a must. But if someone continues to have their own portfolios consists of altcoins and doesn't have Bitcoin, it's also fine as long as they are profiting from it.

If I am going to tell you my story, it's going to be long and we will be like this.

https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/f6974b7ddae1647a32dd34e274c68fb4.jpg

Altcoins were created after Bitcoin success, and in each cryptocurrency market cycle, Bitcoin leads the bull market by breaking out from bear market, and trigger a bull market. Only some old altcoins follow Bitcoin bullish trend, to recover from their bottoms but very few altcoins can touch or make their new ATHs. Most old altcoins fail to make new ATHs in a new market cycle and many of them only recover a bit before dying.

New altcoins created in a new market cycle usually born in middle of cycle, and if you invest money into new altcoin projects in middle or near the end of a market cycle, risk to lose money is really high.

Next stuck in a bear market with new altcoins is like nightmare, they can lose 99% of price from ATH, or they can die.

It's classic and it's a not a trolling graphic but it says truth about altcoins. The more money you invest in altcoins, the more pains you will get and bigger losses too.

We all had our lows.

But we eventually climb on tops too  8)

You can write texts than attach the graphic that requires more loading time and bandwidth. Some forum users with limited Internet access and bandwidth will have issues with graphic.

• Bitcointalk posting etiquette. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5184741.0)

---

Some incorrect information in the graphic.
It's controversial but Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Bitcoin genesis block and it is similar to premine, but 50 BTC in that block reward are unspendable. You can call it as unspendable premined bitcoins.

Really? There are official websites of a decentralized projects but it's wrong to say there are no websites.

Except recent years when projects are launched with a launch price on market or even before that time with seed price, in 2009 when Bitcoin was launched and some years later, many projects began without debut price at block #0. But all cryptocurrencies have their start prices, it's just when they begin to have prices on the market.

I know this from first hand. Unfortunately immense electric price increase in democratic and wealthy countries are favoring altcoins for mining. And when they are mined than they there is quite big marketing around done by miners also. With electricity price over 9 USD cents there is no reason to mine bitcoin .Nevertheless we know from past that bitcoin tends to be more sustainable but nobody knows future. On the other hand there is saying: all altcoins were made just to take your bitcoin.

Just accumulate it and hodl it.
You won't make it alone doing the mining part, today, that is, here I agree with you.

There is a big difference between the two but everything still depends on how you play your game and people are battling even to know what the truth is There is no way you expect everyone to be earnest about investing in Bitcoin, and there are people who have been condemning altcoin but are seriously investing in altcoin, and there is no shame in it if you invest in what you can afford. Some people are more comfortable with altcoin than bitcoin in terms of getting the quantity of the coin, so there is a lot of consideration that people make before investing they consider their finances first, then maybe other things because when you have enough money to invest, you have more advantage than other people, so only smart people will think in this direction.

Those that are investing in altcoin with the mind set that bitcoin is too expensive lacks knowledge on how to accumulate bitcoin, because as long as you have discretionary income, even if it is as low as $10 you start accumulating bitcoin using the dca strategy so you don't need to have $100k before you start accumulating bitcoin all you need is discretionary income.
 It is only those that fails to understand the worth of bitcoin that will choose altcoin over bitcoin, bitcoin is a potential coin and there is no crypto currency that can ever be compared to it.

First and foremost, you need to realize that it's not everyone that has money to do DCA, some can have money from any where and because they may mismanage the money, they will rather put it somewhere in crypto and Bitcoin might be their first take but the truth is this, you can't DCA with small amount of money like $10, you can't even buy less than $10 Bitcoin in some exchanges, unless you have a source of money where you will be buying $10 everyday till you have enough, atleast $10 for 30 days is going to be $300, that amount of Bitcoin a month is reasonable.

Having such amount lower than that can't give you anything if we want to be realistic hence this is why many of them go for other alternatives of altcoins. They feel like it's possible to get something bigger on altcoins than in Bitcoin which is not false, there are many altcoins that are having a yearly growth than Bitcoin to now but are very few but it doesn't change the fact they have done better than Bitcoin in term of recovery and growth of price since the last bear market. However, not everyone is that smart to know what altcoins to buy. Why buy meme coins as investment? I will use the money to eat good meal and call it a day.

But the thing is, I think in the entire history of Bitcoin, it usually never really made too much sense to mine it, because the price was about the same, so you could just buy it instead.

Think about the times close to Genesis, where you could easily mine it with a CPU, sure, you might get 50 BTC every 10 minutes, but your computer would be running hot and the fans would be very noisy, and in exchange you got something that was valued at basically zero.

Then primitive exchanges started, where they first priced Bitcoin based on the electricity needed to CPU mine them. Again, you would be better off just buying it, since you would skip the hot and noise part.

And now it's basically the same, just at a much larger scale.

Bitcoin's fixed supply definitely gives it an advantage over inflation prone altcoins but I've always wondered if all altcoins were truly worthless, why do some of them have such strong developer communities and real world use cases? Ethereum is the backbone of defi, chainlink bridges smart contracts with real world data and monero provides privacy features that bitcoin simply doesn't. Sure, plenty of projects are outright scams but writing off all altcoins seems like ignoring the bigger picture of blockchain's evolution. I think it is worth looking at both sides of the debate.

It's too late for that, unfortunately.

Alas, we are still in a position to get something out of BTC, we just have different ways to achieve the same goal, basically  ;)

Yeah, people around the world still have some "I can't afford to buy a bitcoin" mindset, we need to educate the market that you can buy as low as ten bucks if you want to, there is nothing that we can do to make sure that it can be removed from there, we need to see how this could change on the long run as well.

If we can do that then we are not going to end up with any issues, because it won't be much of a problem at all, it won't be that troublesome. Obviously things will not be easy for anyone, we can't really make big changes right away, but if we can accumulate and wait a bit more then I am sure that we are going to see this changing and could maybe do a bit better. Obviously things are a little sensitive with the drop, but it will be easier soon.

You can still mine at home for example, there are a couple of good miners out there, like the Apollo, and the stuff from GekkoScience, etc.

Sure, you won't be making a lot of money right now, but you might break even considering costs, at some point in the future...

The thing I mentioned is that it looks like it's always been a bit like this. When it was too easy and cheap to mine, the value of BTC was 0.

Then gradually became more expensive, and also the mining got more difficult.

It's always around the same I reckon...

Well, this are also part of the vital points we can consider over the use of bitcoin, but you can come to think of it this way, from the PoW and PoS, you will discover a massive difference and know why the PoW is more preferred, you can also consider the bitcoin nodes, decentralized and how the bitcoin network transactions fees works compared not other altcoins, with all these, you're going into discover on a perfect way to approach the use of crypto with Bitcoin and any other were just an attempt to copy after it.

I don't believe people investing in altcoins are ignorant and don't know how to accumulate bitcoins. They may even be people who understand bitcoin very well but are just greedy, impatient and just want to get rich quickly. They are willing to take the risk to invest in altcoins and think that everything will turn out as they expect. But ironically, the altcoin market is extremely harsh and finding a profitable project is not as easy as they think. That is why many people after losing money with altcoins, the majority will choose to return to bitcoin and give up the idea of ​​getting rich quickly.

Altcoins are created with the concept just t be like bitcoin, and since altcoins are just relying to be like bitcoin it means bitcoin comes first and we have seen that over the years that bitcoin remains the number one.  Their is no altcoin to be compared with bitcoin, altcoins will always be altcoins because they have same similarities and bitcoin remains bitcoin. Investors will freely use bitcoin as store of value without been bothered because bitcoin is reliable for longterm investment but it will be so risky to think of going for an altcoins for a longterm investment because these are coins that anything can happen.

People get into altcoins to try to get rich quick, but end up getting poor quick is usually the outcome.
There is no such thing as getting rich quick, and Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme.

The only ones getting rich with altcoins are the insiders, founders and influencers who are allocated free or almost free tokens to promote the scam.
Everyone else are just the suckers providing their exit liquidity. Altcoins/shitcoins are just as bad if not worse than penny stocks.

Bitcoin doesn't have insiders, founders, executives or influencers controlling it, which makes it the only truly decentralized asset in existence.
Everything else is centralized worthless garbage, but they appeal to idiots because hey you can buy a hundred altcoins for only a dollar!

These are the same geniuses who will gladly pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for a pixelated monkey jpeg NFT.

They are not trying to copy BTC, in most cases, but be their own thing.

They are alts for a reason - if all of them were like LTC, we would see fewer scams and such on the market  ;)

"Printing money" is easy with tokens because you don't need any coding/technical knowledge to launch your very own scam coin. But in Blockchains made from scratch (native cryptocurrencies), it's another story. Although, anyone can create a clone off Dogecoin or Bitcoin's codebase and launch it for his own benefit. But you'd have a hard time convincing centralized exchanges to list your coin. With tokens, it's much easier because decentralized exchanges don't have as many requirements as centralized ones.

Anyways, the biggest difference between Bitcoin and altcoins (besides the supply) is that BTC is decentralized, while most other coins are centralized. Security and reliability is what makes Bitcoin a "winner" among the rest of the pack. Bitcoin also has an anonymous founder/creator, which makes it truly censorship-resistant. Not like the zillions of "shitcoins" you see out there with publicly-known founders. Everybody knows ETH was created by Vitalik Buterin, Cardano was created by Charles Hoskinson, Tron was created by Justin Sun, and so on. This creates a single point of failure as governments will be able to prosecute such individuals to meet with their demands. Why do you think nothing can beat the "King"? :D

I don't think Altcoin are created with the concept to be like Bitcoin in all aspect the reason why I said so is because Bitcoin is a decentralized coin and most or all Altcoin are centralized so if they really wanted to create Altcoin with the same concept I think they would have started by making it a decentralized coin, however in some areas they are created with the concept to be like Bitcoin but it can never be like Bitcoin because they have failed in following the same steps Bitcoin followed, a lot of Altcoin that is created today are created in other to enrich the creator and that is why it is difficult for them to make it a decentralized coin, Bitcoin has a limited number but some Altcoin coin don't that means coin of that shitcoin coin can be created again and again this quality alone shows that it has no value.
No Altcoin can be compared to Bitcoin and if anyone is holding Altcoin for long term investment then he is at big risk because that Altcoin coin can lose it value at any time, yes Bitcoin is a volatile in nature but this those not stop Bitcoin growth, right now there's a dip in Bitcoin and some investors are panicking but this is a time to accumulate with less price not a time to panic, this is not the first time a dip like these is happening in Bitcoin go through the history of Bitcoin growth and see for yourself.

I agree with you. Actually, not everyone who invests in altcoins is someone who doesn't really understand bitcoin. In fact, most of those who invest in altcoins are those who really understand bitcoin, they know that bitcoin halving not only benefits bitcoin but also has a big impact on altcoins, so they shift some of their assets to altcoins.

However, only those who focus on altcoins need to be pitied. They are tempted by altcoins because they want to get rich quick, because sometimes altcoins when they go up can be higher than bitcoin in terms of percentage. That's why many are trapped in altcoins, they buy them when the price is high. I myself don't hate altcoins completely because there are some altcoins that do have strong fundamentals like ETH for example. But if we talk about long-term priorities, of course bitcoin is the best.