What are altcoins?

Bitcoin just hit $14,000+, im to stupid to understand why. What i understand even less is why do alternative cryptos exist? What do they do that bitcoin does not? Why hasn't any alt-coins exploded like bitcoin has? How can they. Can someone explain?

>what do they do that Bitcoin does not

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

Oh, fucking hell that is hilarious, user. 10/10 bait.

Tfw you realize Bitcoin is trump 2016 election in coin form =0

well my friend it all started back in the mines...

>What do they do that bitcoin does not
user, you can trade cats with them

I honestly don't understand, why do people invest in coins other than Bitcoin? Are they expecting them to go up like Bitcoin has? If so why? What do they offer that Bitcoin cannot?

ethereum is valued at $400 right now. yes, people are hoping many of these coins skyrocket. research the coins if you want to know what they offer that bitcoin doesn't.

>I honestly don't understand, why do people invest in coins other than Bitcoin?
Because Bitcoin is a piece of shit and people are hedging on other cryptocurrencies seeing use in the future
>Are they expecting them to go up like Bitcoin has?
They hope
>What do they offer that Bitcoin cannot?
Almost every altcoin is technologically better than Bitcoin

Check out EMC2's 10 day chart.

So they want crypto to work... but don't like the first successful crypto?
>Almost every altcoin is technologically better than Bitcoin
how do you mean?

I dont have bitcoin because if I had £100 in it (basically all my funds), the returns is so minimal, if it goes up a $1000 all you are going to see is £12, not even worth it. I'm putting in money in cheap atl coins that could x10, x20, thats how you make money.

If only there was a website where you could type questions and answers magically appeared

>how do you mean?
Bitcoin is super fucking slow and has exceedingly high fees if you want your money moved at a decent rate, among other things. There's a reason it stopped being called a digital currency and instead a 'store of value'

jokes on you,

Bigh huy, soll lew

so will bitcoin continue to get slower?

...

And gayer.

that part makes sense, guess i didn't understand what was driving the alt-coin price increase but another user explained it to my dumb ass.

Won't that eventually render it useless?

>reaching this hard

Monero has a future as a niche crypto, but it will never go mainstream. Normal people don't give a fuck about privacy until government agents are literally in their house

>Why hasn't any alt-coins exploded like bitcoin has?
many have in %change, use the log scale

Good.

Cypherpunk is dead. Long live cypherpunk.

>render it useless

It already is useless

If only BTC keeps being recognized and heavily sought after, it would be like using an early 90s computer in 2008.

So many teams, so many developers in cryptocurrency, so many possibilities with what you can do with the technology. Da Hongfei and the NEO team are zipping all the world to showcase their technology and others are trying to develop market places.

But no, some expensive shitcoin that you can't even buy a coffee with is number one, a shitcoin that also happens to rape everything else