GLOSSARY // Crypto
Altcoin
An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin — the term is short for alternative coin. It sweeps in everything from Ethereum, the second-largest asset, to thousands of tiny tokens with almost no trading volume.
Altcoins tend to move harder than Bitcoin in both directions. In a rally they can post multiples of Bitcoin's gain, and in a downturn they routinely fall further and take longer to recover, if they recover at all. Many launched with a whitepaper and a promise and now trade near zero, which is why market cap and real usage matter more than the pitch.
In a week where Bitcoin rises 8%, a mid-size altcoin might rise 20% and a micro-cap token 60% — then give most of it back the following week. The wider swing is the whole reason traders hold them, and the whole reason they are riskier.
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Educational only — not financial advice. Definitions simplified for clarity; markets are messier than definitions.