Some newbie questions (and an introduction)

[Lacanau]

Hi everyone,

I'm pretty new to this forum, but not to bitcoin. Actually i'm not too familiar with bitcoin, but understanding the decentralised concept behind bittorrent, I was naturally attracted to bitcoin.

My first visit to this newbie forum brought to light this seemingly current trend of alt-coins. I had done some research in the past into bitcoin mining machines, and still have the idea in the back of my head to invest in some equipment, but i digress...

Could anyone point me to some reading regarding the differences between these types of coins? Why do there seem to be so many? Is it just a speculation mechanism giving people the opportunity to make some bitcoins a bit faster? (e.g. low hash rates paying more blocks out for alt coins which could potentially get pumped in value to something comparable to bitcoin? [at least for a time])

Or have I got the completely wrong idea here...

I'm pretty tech savy and know a few coding languages, but every video/article I read on bitcoins all seem to be targeted at 3-6 year olds...

Thanks a lot

[kaito]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/List_of_alternative_cryptocurrencies
Most of them have nothing but a few constants tweaked.
Few use a different mining concept called "Proof of Stake" https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake
That's about it.

As for why they exist, well you got it about right.

[totemITnow]

Could anyone point me to some reading regarding the differences between these types of coins? Why do there seem to be so many? Is it just a speculation mechanism giving people the opportunity to make some bitcoins a bit faster? (e.g. low hash rates paying more blocks out for alt coins which could potentially get pumped in value to something comparable to bitcoin? [at least for a time])

Trading is zero sum game, some loose, some profit. Altcoins are just speculation, and if you have coding experience you can modify the open source code a bit and add your own altcoin to the altcoin zoo