What is the difference between an ICO and an altcoin?

[quickie69]

My friend told me I should start getting into ICO's. are they different from altcoins? can someone please explain? thank you

[Poink]

All coins except BTC are altcoins.

Most (not all) new coins are launched using ICO. Basically, ICOs are new altcoins.

[adroitful_one]

They are altcoins. Ico's give you an opportunity to get into a coin early and support a project. Basically, the company will have x amount of coins for x amount of price. You get in on the coin at that price and it can go either up or down. ICO stands for initial coin offering.

[Akosibatman]

A ICO(Initial Coin Offering) is a creation of alternative coins. ICO is a program to enable to support their proposal of project. You can read their whitepaper in order for you to understand well their project. Alternative coins is any other coins except bitcoin. These coin can be your bitcoin if you somewhat cant afford to buy bitcoin. You can start investment from some altcoins but beware of scam. Read carefully their whitepaper before joining such ICO.

[rezurect]

ICO = investing your money, so buying in with btc/eth/insert crypto.
Other altcoins start by mining, airdrops seem to be popular these days as well.

[chukaday]

There isn't much difference one is already on a blockchain and one is prepping for blockchain launch. Other than that they are all trying to accomplish one or similar things and that is ascend to the top 25 of the market. In essence for me, there is no difference because they are all trying to do the same thing. The only real difference is if an altcoin didn't do an ICO launch, then they are slightly different in that regard. But yet they are an altcoin just like the other 1k altcoins and they are all trying to ascend to the top 25 of coins.

[leea-1334]

ICOs are crowd funding events, these have nothing to do with altcoins themselves except that they usually result in the creation of one or more digital tokens or coins, collectively referred to as altcoins. Altcoins are as people have said, every other cryptocurrency/token other than Bitcoin.

Investing in altcoins just means buying them directly. Investing in ICOs means you get your share of tokens/alts after they are launched.

My advice: read up until you know the basics before buying or investing.

[esq1337]

My friend told me I should start getting into ICO's. are they different from altcoins? can someone please explain? thank you

Altcoin is an abbreviation of alternative coins (other than Bitcoin), ICO stands for initial coin offering. ICOs on the other hand sell tokens, as a way to fund a specific project.

[oddwh]

An ICO is just the act of pre-selling a new altcoin, before it reaches exchanges. This is a bit like crowfunding, this helps new companies here to get some revenues for marketing, paying employees, offices, taxes... Generally, buying during an ICO is more risky so the price per coin is lower than after it reaches an exchange (even if it's sometimes not true).

Not all altcoins are created from an ICO, this was mostly the 2017 trend. And even, not all coins from an altcoin issued from an ICO are dedicaced for the ICO, as you have bounties, parts given to the team or helpers which aren't sold during an ICO.

[longyenthanh]

All coins without bitcoins are named altcoins.

Ico projects are to investing your money for differents altcoins

It is the easiest definice

[crestella]

What is the difference between an ICO and altcoin ?
ICO (Initial Coin Offering) the earliest coin offerings before launch into the free market. and ICO much in promoting through social media like facebook and twitter.
While altcoin is a collection of all kinds of kinds of coins throughout the crypto market.

[jacaf01]

All ICOs tokens are Altcoins since ALtcoins are crypto tokens that are not Bitcoin, but there are some Altcoins that you can get through mining and airdrops. Just make sure you don't throw your money into scam ICOs because there are some scam projects flowing around now

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

ICO = initial coin offering . its like a new project by company or group and they create their token based or smart contract and make them as their currency .
" why your friend recommended you to join ICO " = ICO price give more bonus % and their price also fluctuative . but alot of them had scam project too . always carefull choose coin you investing. and do your research.

[TonyFat]

in ICO altcoyins serve for the internal ecosystem of the project, ie they have functions and are provided with the work of the project

[VanDeinsberg12]

My friend told me I should start getting into ICO's. are they different from altcoins? can someone please explain? thank you

Ico as initial coin offering which means a service that offers crowdsale to buy altcoin that has been made by the developer of ico itself, altcoin just like a tool to the developer to sell their stocks to through crowdsale.

Basically, ico is not the same as altcoin.