What is an altcoin?
An altcoin is any cryptocurrency that is not bitcoin — the word is short for "alternative coin". The largest is ethereum, but there are many thousands, from big projects with many users to small coins someone made in an afternoon. Altcoins usually swing even more than bitcoin, and a great many have gone to zero.
Different kinds
- Platforms — e.g. ethereum from 2015, where others can build programs (so-called smart contracts) on top of the blockchain.
- Stablecoins — meant to hold a fixed value, usually 1 dollar. Technically they are altcoins, but they behave completely differently.
- Memecoins — coins that started as a joke or an internet phenomenon, with no purpose beyond being traded.
The price per coin fools you
An altcoin at 0.01 € looks cheap next to a bitcoin. But if there are 100 billion of them, the whole coin is worth 1 billion €. It is the total market cap that tells you how big it is — not the price per coin. And a coin at 0.01 € can still fall to 0.00 €.
Why they swing so much
The smaller a coin, the less money it takes to move the price. A small coin can rise 300% in a week because someone writes about it — and fall 90% the week after. Many small coins also have few buyers, so it can be hard to sell when you want to. That is called low liquidity.
The list of the largest coins changes all the time. Only a handful of the names at the top ten years ago are still at the top today.
The typical beginner's mistake
Buying ten small altcoins and calling it diversification. Crypto usually falls together: when bitcoin falls, most altcoins fall more. Ten coins that move together are not ten different risks — they are the same risk ten times.
How you see it in Kiggo
Kiggo's colour map under Market → Crypto shows the 25 largest coins — bitcoin and the largest altcoins, but without stablecoins, since they are not meant to move. Tile size shows the market cap, colour the move over the last 24 hours. Tap a tile for three rings, "10 years at a glance" and the tax card for your country. Crypto is part of Kiggo Plus.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What is the largest altcoin?
Ethereum, launched in 2015. It is a platform where others can build programs and their own coins on top of the blockchain.
How many altcoins are there?
Many thousands — and new ones appear every day. Most are very small, and many are hardly traded. A new name says nothing about whether there is anything behind it.
What is a memecoin?
A coin that started as a joke or an internet phenomenon, such as dogecoin from 2013. The price is driven almost entirely by attention. It can rise wildly and fall just as wildly.
Kiggo explains — Kiggo does not advise. We never tell you what to buy or sell, and key figures can only be compared between companies in the same industry. The decision is yours. Last updated 2026-09-23.
Written by Claus Frisch, founder of Kiggo. Not an adviser, not a bank — Kiggo explains, you decide.
