What are altcoins? Types and real data

What are altcoins? They are all cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin; the word is short for "alternative coin". Ether, Solana, Tron, Monero and memecoins like Dogecoin are all altcoins. On 24 October 2026 CoinGecko tracked 22,462 cryptocurrencies, nearly all of them altcoins, yet the market's value was split differently: 60.1% bitcoin, 11.2% stablecoins and about 29% everything else.

Types of altcoins

• Platform coins. ETH, SOL and TRX pay for running their network and its smart contracts. Ether alone was 10.7% of the whole market, more than a third of the value of all altcoins.
• Stablecoins. USDT and USDC are pegged to the dollar. Formally they are altcoins too, but they are usually counted separately: see what is a stablecoin.
• Exchange tokens. BNB, OKB and the like are issued by the exchanges themselves.
• DeFi tokens. UNI, AAVE and others give a vote on a protocol's rules (what is DeFi).
• Memecoins. DOGE, SHIB and PEPE solve no technical task; their price rests on interest in them.
• Privacy coins. Monero and Zcash hide amounts and addresses (privacy coins).

What we measured

We took the 100 largest altcoins by market cap on CoinGecko on 24 October 2026, leaving out stablecoins and tokenized gold and funds. 94 of them have traded for more than a year. Over that year:

• bitcoin fell 27.5% in dollars;
• 32 of the 94 altcoins did better than bitcoin, but only 21 rose in dollars;
• the median altcoin lost 38.5%, and 27 of the 94 lost more than half;
• ether fell 40.1%, Solana 47.5%, XRP 47.9% and Dogecoin 60.9%;
• among the risers were Zcash (up 345%) and Monero (up 79%), both privacy coins; Zcash climbed into CoinGecko's top ten.

The 100th altcoin on the list was worth $326 million, 885 times less than ether. In a falling year, most altcoins fell harder than bitcoin.

Risks

1. Swings. An altcoin can lose half its price in a year, as 27 of the 94 largest did.
2. Liquidity. The smaller the coin, the thinner the market and the bigger the slippage on a large trade.
3. Delisting. An exchange can drop a coin, as Binance did with Monero in 2024 (privacy coins).
4. Scams. Anyone can launch a new token, and a pool's creator can pull its liquidity (what is a liquidity pool).

FAQ

Is ether an altcoin? Yes, the largest one.

What is the difference between a coin and a token? A coin runs on its own blockchain (ETH on Ethereum), while a token is a contract on someone else's network (USDT on Ethereum or Tron). In everyday talk both are called altcoins.

Are altcoins anonymous? Most are not: ETH, SOL or TRX transfers are as visible as bitcoin's (is crypto anonymous). Monero hides them by default (is Monero traceable).

Where we stand

The notrace.exchange form takes BTC, ETH, SOL and TRX, and USDT and USDC on several networks.

• The payout leaves as two transfers to two addresses of yours, each with its own delay of 0 to 6 hours. If you want the coin and the amount to change too, choose a payout in another coin.
• While a delay runs, the funds are held by the service: section 8 of the terms says so.
• Before you pay, the order offers a letter signed with our PGP key stating what you send and the least you will receive.
• Our fee on 24 October 2026 was 0.5%; the current figure is on the FAQ page.

The Ethereum and Solana pages open the form in that coin with the live minimum.