The biggest differences between Bitcoin and altcoins?

[Rich Tator]

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.

[moneystery]

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.

[Nothingtodo]

What are other differences?

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.

[headingnorth]

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.

[nullama]

~snip~
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.

[melkovkav]

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

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.

[Princess Leah]

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?


A bitcoin mining facility

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.

[nullama]

~snip
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

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. You can see that they started selling their altcoin right away. No proof of work like Bitcoin, just selling air.

Our ether sale is available at http://ethereum.org ; the site contains all needed instructions.

[ancafe]

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?

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.

[Despairo]

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

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

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

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.

But, based on overall preference, definitely Bitcoin wins.

[davis196]

Imagine having a money printer that prints an unlimited amount of dollars anytime you want.

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.

fartcoin, pepecoin, clowncoin, etc.

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

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.

[hero_the_bossman]

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

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

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

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.

But, based on overall preference, definitely Bitcoin wins.

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.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

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.

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.

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.

[Cookdata]

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?

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.

[Lida93]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Asuspawer09]

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.

[melkovkav]

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

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.

Yep, some good thoughts here, agree!

[BlackHatCoiner]

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.

[Glowy]

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?



A bitcoin mining facility

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.

[Emily357]

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