What is an altcoin?

As you spend more time in the world of cryptocurrency, you come across certain terms which you can usually infer the meaning of from context without entirely understanding.

One you will certainly encounter is altcoin. But what exactly is an altcoin?

Essentially an altcoin is any coin or token launched after Bitcoin (the original cryptocurrency). Literally an alternative coin. Some of them are even built on the same architecture as Bitcoin. There's a nice explanation of it here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/altcoin.asp (incidentally, Investopedia is a solid go to site for quick, reliable answers)

Ethereum, and Litecoin are probably the two best known altcoins, but there are literally hundreds of them with different applications including Dash, Bitcoin Cash, SpankChain, NEM, Dogecoin and  (at time of writing close to 1,400!).

Most of them will probably disappear, taking your investment with them! Some will go on to establish themselves as market leaders and could make you rich.

Welcome to Crypto Bytez!

Hello, and welcome to Crypto Bytez, your bite sized source of information on all things crypto, pseudocrypto and blockchain based.

You won't find anything groundbreaking here, and I'm not trying to sell myself as an authority on cryptocurrency - I'm just a guy interested in crypto who wouldn't mind making a bit of money out of it - but as I learn more and discover things of interest on my journey I'll post them here in easily digestible form for you to share.

There will be posts on all the main coins and their forks (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple/XRP etc.) and as many of the proliferation of altcoins as possible.

I'll do my best to try to make some sense out of the overwhelming amount of information on the overwhelming amount of coins and tokens out there. Let me know how I'm doing.

See you around!

P.S. Sorry the name's a bit lame, but all the good ones seem to have gone already.