Leaving aside the massive growth in value for Bitcoin in 2017, the digital currency is off to a rocky start in 2018. This is mostly due to increased volatility, given the end of the holiday season, alongside with several world events, with direct consequences in the bitcoin price.

Therefore, on the 9th of January, the bitcoin price plunged by roughly 13.5%, which is approximately $2,000, following news that South Korea is actively planning to ban digital currency trading within the country.

Members of the digital currency community are well-aware of the Chinese influence on Bitcoin and other altcoins, and this is quite understandable, considering the fact that a large percentage of all trading is being carried out in the Asian country.

During the last couple of months, Bitcoin has seen a massive growth in value, rising from around $600, up to $1,180, thus reaching its record-high in a total of 3 years. Economic analysts believe that the rise in value is mostly due to the strict capital controls in China, which have encouraged investors to see bitcoin as a way of getting past the controls, for further investing into ‘foreign’ capital. This has drawn quite a lot of attention to the digital currency in the eyes of regulators, which is why it is now believed that China will soon implement regulation, meant to limit, or better control the use of digital currencies in the country.

With the constant growth in popularity and value of Bitcoin, it is no surprise that a big part of the digital currency community has forgotten about alternative currencies, also known as altcoins, and their role in the fintech ecosystem. During the last year, only two-three alternative currencies have made their way to the spotlight, or have seen any form of growth, whereas the others simply waited for something to happen.

However, there is an abundance of reasons explaining why members of the digital currency community should pay more attention to the evolution, or better said, lack of evolution of altcoins, and perhaps attempt to do something about it. It is worth keeping in mind that like any tool, in the world of cryptocurrencies, one size cannot fit all, which means that digital currencies vary in use based on the scenarios that they are tested in.

Ever since Bitcoin became popular and a larger number of people started to believe that cryptocurrencies had a clear future, a large number of altcoins, also known as bitcoin-alternatives started being developed. With this in mind, along the last couple of years, there have been tons of different coins developed, some of which became prominent figures in the industry, whereas other failed miserably.

Bitcoin is the first true cryptocurrency, it was created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto and since then has become extremely popular. Over $8 billion is invested into Bitcoin today, and there are over 60,000 Bitcoin transactions per day. Just about any product or service in the world can be bought with Bitcoin. The popularity of Bitcoin has led to numerous alternative cryptocurrencies, which are essentially copies of Bitcoin with some unique attributes.


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