History shapes language. First there was Bitcoin (there had been previous attempts at electronic money but no real success). Just ask most people about cryptocurrency and you will get comments on Bitcoin being a criminal’s money. Most people are not even aware that there are other forms of crypto.

The development of Bitcoin spawned a lot of interest in developing alternatives, supposedly able to address its short-comings. Disagreements in the mining communities resulted in copies (hard forks) of existing coins and developments of new ones. Extra ideas, such as programmable inputs were also brought in.

Now there is Bitcoin, Etherium and lots of alt-coins. Lots and lots, measured in thousands of new coins and tokens. I have separated Eth from the altcoins because of its huge market capital and because it is used a base for the creation of many other forms of crypto.

Bitcoin has increased hugely in value over the past 10 years (large fluctuations make it more exciting), so it is now considered a store of value, rather than a currency. However, its increases are dwarfed by some of the increases (and price drops) in many of the altcoins.

The problem is knowing how to choose an altcoin to buy and then when to sell it. Even when you find one that is increasing quickly, it is exciting enough that your inclination is to go on riding it up to the top. Where is the top? Nobody knows?

So what to do? Build and apply a strategy (logic not emotion) systematically. Usually this means researching a coin, buying it and then selling when it reaches a pre-determined price. Not very exciting, but it can be profitable.

Apparently it is now an alt season. Try to figure out what that means.