Crypto: there’s value beyond Bitcoin

Bitcoin proved digital money works. Altcoins are proving what else blockchains can do—from programmable finance to global payments. Here's what powers the infrastructure behind the next financial system.

Altcoins aren't just "other cryptos." They're the infrastructure layer of a new digital economy—think of them as the railroads, payment networks, and app stores of Web3. While Bitcoin stores value, these networks process transactions, run applications, and move $200B+ daily through stablecoins alone.

Smart contract platforms

Ethereum pioneered programmable money. Its smart contracts—self-executing code that runs financial agreements without middlemen—unlocked DeFi, NFTs, and tokenization. Today, Ethereum hosts $57B in locked value across thousands of applications. Solana took a different approach: speed. Processing 65,000 transactions per second at fractions of a cent, it's become the go-to for high-frequency trading and consumer apps. Newer entrants like BNB, Sui and Sei push this further, optimising for specific use cases like gaming and orderbook trading. Another instance is NEAR, which stands out for user experience: human-readable wallet addresses instead of cryptic strings, and sharding technology that scales without sacrificing decentralization.

Exchange infrastructure and mass distribution

BNB powers the world's largest crypto exchange ecosystem. Beyond trading fee discounts, BNB Chain hosts a thriving DeFi ecosystem and serves as a launchpad for new projects—essentially the app store of centralised crypto finance. Toncoin takes a different route to scale: Telegram integration. With 900M+ monthly users, TON is positioned as the payments layer for one of the world's largest messaging platforms—a direct pipeline to mass adoption that no other blockchain can replicate.

Cross-border payments

XRP was built to challenge SWIFT, the network moving trillions in global payments. Its ledger settles transactions in 3-5 seconds versus days for traditional wire transfers. Litecoin, one of the earliest altcoins, addressed Bitcoin's scalability limitations for everyday transactions with faster block times and lower fees.

The connective tissue

Chainlink doesn't compete with blockchains—it connects them to the real world. Its oracle network feeds external data (prices, weather, sports scores) into smart contracts, enabling $17T+ in transaction value. Without oracles, DeFi couldn't function. Polkadot and Cosmos solve a different problem: interoperability. As the number of blockchains grows, these networks let them communicate, preventing a fragmented ecosystem.

The risk-reward equation

Altcoins behave more like early-stage tech ventures than currencies. Over 50% of tokens launched since 2021 have failed. But winners can deliver outsized returns—Solana is up over thousands of percent since launch. The asymmetry is the appeal: limited downside, theoretically unlimited upside.

For portfolios, altcoins represent the growth sleeve alongside Bitcoin's store-of-value anchor. The key is selectivity: focus on projects with real usage, developer activity, and sustainable economics. In that aspect, a fund that rebalances quarterly, systematically trimming winners and adding to laggards to manage concentration risk may provide an upside. On top of that, no crypto wallet is required.