Unit 4 · Level 1 · The crypto map
Altcoins & the long tail
Every crypto that isn't Bitcoin is an 'altcoin', and there are tens of thousands of them, from Ethereum down to joke tokens launched in an afternoon. A tiny handful matter; the long tail is a graveyard. The single most important tool for judging any of them is market cap, not price.
Free to play. No ads, no token, no account needed to start.
What you get asked
What counts as an 'altcoin'?
'Alt' just means 'alternative to Bitcoin'. The label says nothing about quality; it covers Ethereum and the most worthless token alike.
A token trades at €0.10 and has 10 billion tokens in circulation. What is its market cap, in billions of euros?
Market cap = price × circulating supply: €0.10 × 10,000,000,000 = €1 billion. The 'cheap' 10-cent price hides a billion-euro valuation.
A coin costs €0.0001. Your friend says: 'It's so cheap. If it just hits €1, we're rich!' What's wrong with that?
If that coin has a trillion tokens, €1 each means a €1 trillion market cap, bigger than Bitcoin. The '€0.0001 is cheap' feeling is exactly what shillers exploit.
Match each bucket of the crypto map to its reality
The smaller the cap, the bigger both the dream and the graveyard. Size tells you how much trust (and how much risk) is already priced in.
After a bubble pops, most altcoins never reclaim their previous all-time ___.
Each cycle crowns new favourites while the old ones bleed out quietly. 'It was €5 once, so it'll be €5 again' is hope, not analysis. 🐜
The rest of this unit
BTC, ETH, alts, stablecoins, CEX vs DEX: the whole territory.