The term "altcoin" is a compound word made up of "alternative" and "coin," and it simply refers to any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.

In other words, since the advent of Bitcoin as the first successful cryptocurrency in 2009, thousands of other digital currencies have emerged. These new currencies are collectively referred to as "altcoins."

Why did altcoins emerge?

Altcoins emerged for several reasons, including:

An attempt to improve or develop certain aspects of Bitcoin: Some altcoins aim to provide faster transaction technologies, lower fees, higher levels of privacy, or different mining mechanisms.

Offering new use cases: Some altcoins are designed to serve specific purposes, such as supporting decentralized applications (as is the case with Ethereum) or facilitating fast cross-border payments (as is the case with Ripple).