If you join the currency market as a newbie, someone will definitely tell you: Don’t buy “altcoins”! What garbage coins are "air coins"? Many new leeks are confused about this. What is an altcoin? What is air currency? This article explains in simple language what altcoins and air coins are.

February 11th: Some definitions of air coins and altcoins were revised, and descriptions of [tokens] and [competitive coins] were added.

Copycat coin

First of all, there is no unified statement in the currency circle to determine what an altcoin is and what is not an altcoin. So here I will make some personal explanations for altcoins based on my personal analysis and views on the market.

Before 2017, except for Bitcoin (BTC), all other coins were altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), Futurecoin (NXT), etc. . Because people at the time believed that these coins developed after BTC only copied the technical advantages of BTC and then improved upon them, they were all called copycats.

However, today, can you say ETH or altcoin? Can you say that LTC is an altcoin? They already have their practical use cases. And they have also been challenging BTC’s position as the leader.

altcoin

For these altcoins that perform relatively well, we give them the honorific title "altcoins", so the leading altcoin is ETH.

How to determine whether a coin is an altcoin?

1.Do you have your own main chain?

If a token called blockchain technology does not even have its own main chain and relies on smart contract platforms of other blockchains (smart contract platforms such as ETH, NEO, ACT, NXT, etc.), I personally think that these coins are unnecessary. I doubt they are all altcoins. For example, the previously popular TRON (TRX) is truly the king of copycats!

TRX surged up to 75 times in a month starting in December, which attracted the attention of the world. However, it has fallen more than 70% since it peaked on January 5. "Brothers standing on the hill! Are you okay?"

Token

90% of the coins we see on the market now are tokens, and most of them are based on tokens issued by Ethereum ERC20 or other underlying public chains.

Whether or not it has its own main chain is the only criterion for judging a token.

In fact, it is explained very clearly in English. The English token (the corresponding Chinese translation is token) token is a currency issued by other smart contract platforms that have their own main chain (actually it should be called a token). Coins that have their own main chain are called Coin in English. Is there a strict distinction between Coin and token in China?

How to check whether the currency is token or coin?

Use the website Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations | CoinMarketCap to query

2. Is there any actual application scenario?

Give some examples and let everyone judge for themselves. The actual application scenarios here are non-transaction application scenarios (except financial payment coins)

  • BNB

BNB (Binance Coin) is a token issued by Binance. Using BNB to trade on Binance reduces the handling fee by 50%, and Binance Exchange has BNB trading pairs (XXX/BNB). More importantly, Binance promises to pay back regularly. BNB is repurchased for destruction without additional issuance (issuance volume is 200 million). Therefore, although BNB is an air currency, it has practical value and is currently the platform currency of Binance, the world's number one exchange. To say it is an altcoin, I don’t think it counts.

  • LinkToken (Wanke Coin)

For the blockchain technology projects that are currently implemented in China, please see Baidu Encyclopedia for detailed introduction. Of course, LinkToken is not an air currency.

  • NEOG (GAS)

GAS is a native token issued based on the NEO smart contract platform. In fact, GAS is a fuel token with a maximum total amount of 100 million. It is used to control resources when using the NEO network. The smallest unit of GAS is 0.00000001. To put it simply, it is free to pay the miner fee ETH when transferring money on the ETH platform. When transferring money on the NEO platform, it is free, but you can get priority processing by paying GAS to increase the transfer speed. Then GAS has practical application scenarios.

It is relatively common for coins to have their own main chain.

  • BTC

  • ETH

  • QTY

  • NEO

  • ACT

  • Nxt

  • Zcash

  • ADA etc.

Blockchain smart contract platform that can issue tokens

air currency

At this time, we have to talk about what air currency is.

There is no actual application scenario, no own main chain, and no effective open source code.

So this coin is basically an air coin. Air coins are basically used by project parties to make money.

Air coins basically have the following characteristics:

  • The packaging is very high-end

  • Invite new people to get various airdrop candy rewards

  • Various psoriasis-style advertisements

  • The quality of the white paper is very low.

Summarize

Altcoin: A currency that has its own main chain or has already implemented application scenarios or has open source code is called an altcoin. Representative: EOS; ELF; ICX

Air currency: A currency that does not have its own main chain and has no practical application scenarios and no open source code is called air currency. Represents; SHOW.

Alternative coins: Coins that have their own main chain or have already implemented application scenarios are called alternative coins. Representative: ETH; ADA; BNB

Token: A currency that does not have its own main chain is called a token. Representative: EOS; TRX; AE

Do the above currencies have investment value?

You look at EOS, you look at TRX, you look at XXX. I don’t know what investment value you are talking about? Get rich overnight or something else? Don’t forget that market price is mainly driven by [the value of the project itself] [evil capital operation]