Bitcoin ushered in the era of cryptocurrency in 2009, and it quickly became the name mentioned by anyone who talked about digital assets.
Litecoin (LTC) was founded by Charlie lee and was welcomed by the community with more enthusiasm than Bitcoin.

Bitcoin(BTC) ushered in the era of cryptocurrency in 2009, and it quickly became the name mentioned by anyone who talked about digital assets. Altcoin originally meant “Bitcoin alternative” because, in the early stages of cryptocurrency development, every blockchain-based currency was seen as a type of Bitcoin or similar to Bitcoin.

So whatever was not Bitcoin was, somewhat derisively, called altcoins or perhaps, even less charitably, sh*tcoins, in a rhyme with the original.

Altcoins are often more advanced in technical features or ecosystem applications, but so far, no altcoin has come close to surpassing Bitcoin in consensus, ubiquity, or market capitalization.

Altcoins are of different types they include: Stablecoins, which are a kind of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to that of another asset, typically the U.S. dollar. Following, Memecoins are a kind of currency that has taken the public’s fancy, mainly through social media alongside the tweets of celebrities, Tesla CEO Elon Musk(DogeFather). A security token is a kind of coin that represents a fractional interest in another asset.

A list of popular altcoins includes:

Ethereum (ETH)
Tether (USDT)
USD Coin (USDC)
Binance Coin(BNB)
Ripple (XRP)
Binance USD (BUSD)
Cardano (ADA)
Solana (SOL)
Polkadot (DOT)

Since 2011, more than 20,000. Bitcoin was only known to a very small group of early adopters. In November 2009, a forum that was the progenitor of Bitcointalk appeared on bitcoin.org. This led to the growing popularity of the currency.

Exactly two years after the infancy of Bitcoin, Litecoin (LTC) was founded by Charlie lee and was welcomed by the community with more enthusiasm. Litecoin was mined with CPU, leaving GPU for the more expensive Bitcoin.

.@VitalikButerin claims that #Ethereum will be able to to process "100,000 transactions per second", following the completion of 5 key phases:

• The Merge
• The Surge
• The Verge
• The Purge
• The Splurge

A quick breakdown of what each stage means for $ETH. 👇 pic.twitter.com/FnaWww8mHZ

— Miles Deutscher (@milesdeutscher) July 22, 2022

Ethereum, no-longer an altcoin?

Ethereum is a blockchain-based software platform that is used for sending and receiving value globally with its native cryptocurrency, ether.

Ethereum then gained awareness in early 2014 when Vitalik Buterin brought the concept of the blockchain project into the light at a BTC conference in Miami. Ethereum was the first project to introduce decentralized applications.

It is worth noting that decentralized application and community aspects of Ether’s growth have created a much more exciting community.

Ethereum was not only created as a currency but also as an ecosystem platform. This growth has only compounded from 2017’s initial coin offering (ICO) boom, the DeFi Summer of 2020, and the launch of numerous public chains supporting the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

By tightening its muscles, the decentralized applications, Ether has become a viable alternative in forming a legitimate consensus and community support.

Not to mention the Ethereum merge, whereby it made a transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus. The next steps all aim to enable Ethereum to “process 100,000 transactions per second.”

The merger brought a sharp tumble in energy consumption and heightened security investors did not expect an immediate price boost.

Bottom line

With literally thousands of alternative coins in existence, altcoins continue to gain in popularity. While no single coin may be able to unseat Bitcoin’s position as the top cryptocurrency, altcoins as a whole should continue to chip away market share from the leader, even if the total “cryptocurrency pie” continues to expand.

The dominance of a few big players like Bitcoin and Ethereum in the blockchain realm shouldn’t put off the flame of the entrepreneurial spirit of other blockchain developers.

Even though Ethereum is widely touted as a successful decentralized project, some critics argue that the network is not sufficiently decentralized to surpass the crypto king.

It really isn’t as simple as the Bitcoin camp versus the Ether camp. Networks like Polygon or Kusama already illustrate how community-building and diverse blockchain applications are not only reserved for the big shots in the crypto space.