Altcoins (or alts, as they're also called) are alternatives to bitcoin and started appearing as of 2011, when Namecoin tried to decentralize the domain name system so as to make the Internet more censorship-resistant. Litecoin followed, as the first popular cryptocurrency to use Scrypt instead of SHA-256 and here we are, several years later, with over 1,600 altcoins listed on CoinMarketCap.com. An important question arises: do all of these altcoins "deserve" to exist? As I'm about to explain today, the answer is no! While altcoins like Namecoin and Litecoin which genuinely innovate do exist, most of them (the overwhelming majority of alts) are nothing more than crypto-based pump and dump schemes. By defining altcoins and explaining what alts are all about, I did my best to help people understand that realistically speaking, only a ridiculously small percentage of altcoins deserve their current market capitalization. Does this mean you should stay away from the altcoin world? No, not necessarily, it simply means you need to understand the nature of the asset you're investing in. If you'd like to follow me on social media, use one of the links below: https://www.facebook.com/oneminuteeconomics https://twitter.com/andreipolgar https://ro.linkedin.com/in/andrei-polgar-9a11a561