There are many fewer that started in the 1980s that survive to this day e.g. Apple, Microsoft, Intel
Crypto today is like the 1980s there are Alt coins that will get hot and decline not to be heard from again; Dogecoin?
It is actually a lot like penny stocks. We have the big one on top called bitcoin (which is like the stocks whether Apple or Microsoft or ...) then we have thousands of useless small assets in a tiny market called penny stocks that have no real value and are only being pumped and dumped in a market called altcoin market instead of penny stocks.
BTC* - Microsoft - Great name recognition, easy to understand function
That's ignoring the main characteristics of bitcoin!
The most important thing is that it is delivering what it promised which is a decentralized censorship resistance payment system with high security.
The fact that bitcoin has grown this much has nothing to do with name recognition or being easy to understand because it has neither. With the amount of FUD against bitcoin its name is sullied with a lot of lies and it is extremely difficult for most people to understand how it functions specially since it is different from any other currency they have ever used.
ETH* - Apple - adopted by Defi and other platforms
This is actually like the Tulip mania. There is a useless hype called "smart contracts" that so far had no real world applications in the past 6 years that ethereum has existed and it solves nothing. It also was not capable of delivering what it promised. It is both centralized and mutable.
On top of all that it has unlimited supply with a gigantic premine of 72 million.
For now it is being pumped for a couple of weeks maybe but there is no future for such a severely flawed design.
BCH* - The general public will see this as the poor man's bitcoin
This is more like a centralized shitcoin that isn't good for anything other than short term pump and dumping.
It is also known as a scam coin specially since it had to scam people to force them into buying it. Like what bitcoin.com did when people went to that site clicked "buy bitcoin" gave their "bitcoin" address but they received bcash instead!