# Do you know the difference between #Bitcoin and #altcoins? 

**Published by:** [Vin33T](https://paragraph.com/@bitvinx/)
**Published on:** 2022-12-07
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@bitvinx/do-you-know-the-difference-between-bitcoin-and-altcoins

## Content

What is Bitcoin and how does it work? Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency. It was created by a person with the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. You can buy, sell, and trade it for other cryptocurrencies, receive it for the exchange of goods and services, and so on. But one key thing that makes it stand out against all other digital currencies is its peer-to-peer nature. That means Bitcoin is transferred between persons with no need of an intermediary, like a bank or any other financial institution. Every Bitcoin transaction from inception is recorded on a public ledger for everyone to see. Transactions on the blockchain are immutable. That means these transactions are unchangeable or uneditable after they are made. Even if there’s an error with the transaction, once committed, that’s it. It can’t be brought back just in case you sent some funds to the wrong address. What is considered an altcoin? An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. If it’s not Bitcoin, then it’s an altcoin. There are over 20,000 cryptocurrencies in the market at the moment. Bitcoin stands out, it’s the one with the most market capitalization as we speak. Maybe that will change in the nearest future, I don’t know. This has been a topic that’s always been debated by many people and they have a whole lot to say and reasons why it could remain at the top or get flipped by one of the popular altcoins to become the second or third. But that topic is for another day. Popular altcoins include Ethereum (ETH), which is the second cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after BTC. Binance Coin (BNB), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT), Polygon (MATIC), and so on are just a few other popular altcoins in the market today.

## Publication Information

- [Vin33T](https://paragraph.com/@bitvinx/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@bitvinx/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@bitvinx): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/VineetSonkar): Follow on Twitter