What Are Altcoins, Coins, and Tokens? | Britannica Money

If you’re new to cryptocurrency and find “crypto-speak” a bit dizzying, it’s probably because both the technology and terms are still evolving, and definitions tend to morph over time. Even those who speak crypto may be unwittingly conflating terms because there aren’t many standardized definitions yet.

Take, for instance, the most basic terms identifying cryptocurrency: coins, altcoins, and tokens. Are they synonymous? According to many sources, they’re not. Yet they’re used synonymously in different contexts:

• Some tokens are launched via initial coin offerings (ICOs), although they’re not technically coins. 
• Some tokens are also considered altcoins, even though there’s a technical difference. 
• One of the largest crypto exchanges considers all tokens to be altcoins, yet refers to all crypto assets as (technically) tokens.

Is your head spinning? That’s OK; even crypto pros don’t always get it right. 

Despite the difficulties in trying to tell crypto apples from crypto oranges—or whether there really is a difference—it helps to understand the basic lingo that’s being thrown around, even if the meanings change or remain uncertain. 

A semantic rabbit hole it may be. But here’s a guide to help you explore altcoins, coins, and tokens without falling in.

What is an altcoin?

If the entire cryptocurrency universe expanded from a single point, sort of like a big bang, that point of singularity would be Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency. Every cryptocurrency that’s not the original Bitcoin is considered an “alternative” to it, hence an “alternative coin” or altcoin.

From this vantage point, an altcoin is every cryptocurrency that’s not Bitcoin. But there’s a caveat to this definition: Not everyone agrees with it.

Bitcoin was designed as an alternative to our everyday standard currency. Ethereum introduced another region to the blockchain universe: one that allowed for innovations such as smart contracts and decentralized applications (dapps) to flourish.