By now everyone’s heard of BitcoinBTC -1.2%. It introduced the world to blockchain or distributed ledger technology and as a crypto asset, it is the center of the universe. But bitcoin is hardly alone. In fact, an entire galaxy of crypto assets has been created to support a wide range of use cases and applications focused on verticals such as identity management, data storage, gaming, banking, lending, social media and streaming.

Because Bitcoin started the industry, virtually every other crypto asset is called an alt-coin. Alt-coins can be categorized in a few different ways.

By now everyone’s heard of BitcoinBTC -1.2%. It introduced the world to blockchain or distributed ledger technology and as a crypto asset, it is the center of the universe. But bitcoin is hardly alone. In fact, an entire galaxy of crypto assets has been created to support a wide range of use cases and applications focused on verticals such as identity management, data storage, gaming, banking, lending, social media and streaming.

Because Bitcoin started the industry, virtually every other crypto asset is called an alt-coin. Alt-coins can be categorized in a few different ways.