How to Buy Altcoins: A Complete Guide for Beginners
Top 5 Airdrop Farming Projects on Solana (Part 2)
Farming Airdrops on Binance Alpha: Low Risk, High Reward
How to participate in Hyperlane presale on Binance Wallet
What is Hyperlane: The Best Guide to Cross-Chain Connectivity
Is Binance Safe? Binance Exchange Security Measures Tested
What is XRP (Ripple)? The Complete Beginner’s Guide
What is Restaking in Crypto? The Beginner’s Guide
Binance Wallet Hosts Lorenzo Protocol (BANK) on PancakeSwap
Is MetaMask Safe and Legit? Security Measures Analysis
6 Best Crypto Exchanges in Singapore For 2025
Phemex Review 2025: Is it a Safe & Legit Crypto Exchange?
Binance vs Binance US: What are the Key Differences?
What Is GameFi and How Does It Work?
What is Ondo Finance? Future of RWAs and DeFi
What is Gem Wallet: Best Multi-Chain Solution for DeFi Users
What are Utility NFTs? Best NFT Utility Examples
Rabby vs MetaMask: Which is a Better Crypto Wallet?
What Is DeSci? The Ultimate Guide to Decentralized Science
What Are Pudgy Penguins (PENGU)? The Ultimate Collector’s Guide
What is an NFT Drop? Your Simple Guide to Participation
What Is Trust Wallet? A 2025 Comprehensive Guide
What is DeFi (Decentralized finance) and How Does it Work?
What is DeFi NFT? The Ultimate Guide
Is May the beginning of a new growth cycle for Bitcoin?
Top 5 projects Could be Listed on Binance
Mantra (OM) Price Prediction: Last Chance for Profit Gainers?
How Market Makers Become Executioners: A Lesson from the Mantra Collapse
Hyperliquid Deep Dive: Understand HYPE and HLP Model
XRP Deep Dive: A Masssive Player in Today’s Crypto Market
Study: 88% of Businesses Reported Higher Revenue after Accepting Crypto Payment
Survey: Nearly 80% of FTX Creditors Will Reinvest in Crypto with Their Repayment
XDC Deep Dive
Survey: 1 in 7 Americans Has Bought TRUMP Memecoin
Robonomics (XRT) Deep Dive
2025 Crypto Ownership Report: 70% of American Adults Own Cryptocurrency
By Amit Chahar
Key Takeaways
Altcoins are cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, and there are over 16,500 such crypto coins with diverse uses and technologies.
According to market cap, the leading altcoins include Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Litecoin, and stablecoins like USDT and USDC.
Always conduct thorough research before you buy altcoins, examining their development team, technology, utility, and tokenomics.
If you’re a technology or crypto coins enthusiast interested in diversifying your cryptocurrency trading portfolio, you may ask yourself how to buy altcoins. Apart from Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), several other promising other coins offer growth, innovation, andprofit-making opportunities.
This guide explains the step-by-step process for buying and selling altcoins to help you make an informed investment decision in the cryptocurrency market.
The term “altcoins” is the short form for “alternative coins” and refers to any other popular cryptocurrency apart from Bitcoin (BTC). The word implies that altcoins are alternatives to traditional government-issued fiat currencies and Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency.
If you’ve been in the crypto assets space for a while, you already know thousands of altcoins are in the market, with the initial ones being launched as early as 2011.
The first altcoins were designed to address Bitcoin’s perceived shortcomings and improve transaction speeds, energy efficiency, low transaction fees, and other related aspects.
Besides their investment potential, people buy altcoins, often perceived as “improved versions” of cryptocurrencies, because they serve various purposes. The most common factors associated with popular alternative coins include utility and broader use cases.
Whether you’re a beginner trying your first altcoin investment or an experienced trader refining your strategy, choosing where to buy your altcoins is your first crucial step.
The crypto space offers various cryptocurrency exchanges with different features, transaction fees, and security measures. Selecting a fast, secure, reliable, and user-friendly centralized or decentralized cryptocurrency exchange is convenient and determines your overall experience and trading outcomes. Some of the top altcoin trading platforms in the market include Binance, OKX, Bybit and MEXC.
Regardless of which exchange you’re using, always verify trading platforms comply with Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and other forms of regulatory compliance to optimize your trading experience.
User Score
10
Promotion
-10% Trading Fees
Get 10% Lifetime Cashback on Every Trade
When it comes to buying and selling altcoins, the process involves only a few more steps than buying Bitcoin. Most experts recommend buying BTC and trading it for your desired altcoin since most can be paired with Bitcoin.
While you could get altcoins directly over the counter (OTC) or from other traders, we highly recommend that beginners use trusted cryptocurrency exchanges to avoid fraud.
The following are steps to take when choose to trade altcoins:
Research shows that most altcoins fail within 1.2 years. When speculating on untested coins, you need to divide your crypto portfolio into risky layers. Consider using a portfolio tracker to monitor your coins.
Consider factors such as liquidity and trading volume, purpose, adoption rate and community support to decide on which altcoin to buy. Additionally, check whether the coin has an official working website or is supported by your digital wallet or plan to use it.
Since you can’t purchase altcoins with fiat currency in most cases, you need to buy digital currencies like Bitcoin to swap with your preferred altcoin at the cryptocurrency exchanges you’ll be using.
Some exchanges accept bank transfers credit card purchases from leading financial institutions, so check on the best cryptocurrency exchanges.
Once you’ve bought your Bitcoin, scout the cryptocurrency market for an exchange that offers your altcoin. Choose from the available alternatives using factors like daily volumes, currency pairs, hourly trades, and market cap.
Unless you’re an expert, avoid less popular exchanges and choose more liquid ones. The next step is registering for the exchange before using it.
User Score
10
Promotion
-10% Trading Fees
Get 10% Lifetime Cashback on Every Trade
After you register, transfer some Bitcoin from your hardware wallet to the exchange. Since trading is done in currency pairs, you must exchange your BTC for your altcoin. Since the altcoin market is dynamic, always check how the currency pair you selected has traded over the past few weeks or months for reference.
Once you’re ready to proceed, visit the exchange and place a market order to buy. If you’re using the exchange for the first time, take the time to understand how orders work.
Once you finish the process, the altcoins you just bought will be live on the exchange. Complete the process by moving your precious cryptocurrencies off the exchange and into your crypto wallet.
There are two types of wallets to store altcoins: a hot wallet connected to the internet and lives on your mobile phone or computer, or a cold wallet, such as a paper wallet or hardware wallet, that isn’t connected to the internet. Cold wallets are considered more secure.
You just learned how to buy and sell altcoins, and started speculating about the future of money. If your crypto’s value escalates, you can reap a good return on investment.
When it comes to buying altcoins, the following should be your key concerns when making a decision:
There are different types of altcoins to choose from today’s altcoin market, each addressing a different issue within the cryptocurrency space. As a result, selecting the right one from a multitude of choices can be a difficult task.
You need precise criteria to help you evaluate the relevance of any altcoins and their potential return on investment before you add them to your portfolio. Among the essential factors to consider include the following:
Select an altcoin with a clear objective, one designed to solve a specific problem. Understand the solution it offers and how it integrates with the broader blockchain and cryptocurrency space.
Research information about the professional background and reputation of the development team members. An experienced team with relevant skills increases confidence in the altcoin’s ability to thrive, or whether it has community support.
An altcoin with enough liquidity and a high trading volume shows it is highly traded, reducing the risk of manipulation or high market volatility. High liquidity guarantees that you can quickly convert your altcoin investment into fiat money or other digital assets.
Among the most popular altcoins you can buy today include several well-established coins with a large market cap, like Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Avalanche (AVAX).
Source: CoinMarketCap
Nonetheless, note that many of these have experienced tremendous growth and overcrowding. Consider some lesser-known altcoins with better investment opportunities after carefully researching the altcoin market. This can include low liquidity altcoins like Shiba Inu (SHIB), Toncoin (TON), Polkadot (DOT, Chainlink (LINK), Injective (INJ), and Stellar (XLM), among others.
The following are the best altcoins you can buy right now:
Protecting your digital assets is the most critical aspect of investing in the digital currency market because, compared to government-issued currencies, crypto is more susceptible to hacking attacks. Thus, be careful when choosing which crypto wallet to store your altcoins. For hot wallets, Trust Wallet, MetaMask, and Coinbase Wallet are the top choices of most traders.
However, a careful approach to safe storage demands that you use a hardware wallet, which is a physical device that offers offline altcoin storage. Unlike hot wallets, hardware wallets like Ledger, Trezor, and Exodus are not vulnerable to online attacks since they’re not connected to the internet. 
The process of selling altcoins resembles the process of buying altcoins:
Altcoins have transformed the crypto landscape and offered exciting opportunities for investors. Whether you choose more established cryptocurrencies or stick to the high-risk, high-reward altcoins, always exercise caution when buying or selling altcoins.
People in the crypto market interested in diversifying their crypto portfolios choose altcoins because they are less expensive than Bitcoin and have more use cases.
The main difference between altcoins and tokens is their structure. Altcoins are independent cryptocurrencies with their own blockchains, while tokens operate on top of blockchains and facilitate the creation of decentralized applications (DApps).
The most popular altcoins based on market cap include Ethereum, Ripple, Tether, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Litecoin and popular meme coins like DOGE.
Most altcoins operate as cryptocurrencies, with the main purpose of serving as a store of value and handling decentralized peer-to-peer payments.
User reviews show that Binance is the go-to exchange for altcoin traders as it offers the widest selection and an unparalleled diversity of altcoins for trading.
Solana (SOL) would be the best altcoin to buy as it has a high potential for explosion. The altcoin has developed blockchain infrastructure that aligns with the Web3 era.
The best altcoin wallets you can use for your altcoins include Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and Exodus Wallet.
While it’s impossible to guarantee a 1000x gain in the crypto market, history shows it can happen. Crypto coins like Solana, Polygon, and Shiba Inu have delivered such profits in previous cycles.
Amit Chahar
With a background in Computer Science, Amit Chahar is a passionate crypto writer, specializing in Crypto and Blockchain Technology. With over 5 years of experience in the crypto and Web3 space, Amit has authored more than 1,000 articles, making him a prolific and knowledgeable writer in the field. His dedication extends beyond writing, as he is also the founder of two crypto websites: walletreviewer.com and reviewexchanges.com. Beyond crypto trading and investing, he is also a stock investor and enjoy playing cricket in his free time.
Disclaimer
NFTevening is an award-nominated media outlet that covers NFTs and the cryptocurrency industry. Opinions expressed on NFTevening are not investment advice. Before making any high-risk investments in cryptocurrency or digital assets, investors should conduct thorough research. Please be aware that any transfers and transactions are done at your own risk, and any losses incurred are entirely your responsibility. NFTevening does not endorse the purchase or sale of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets and is not an investment advisor. Additionally, please note that NFTevening participates in affiliate marketing.
Cryptocurrency
Analysis
Learn
Crypto Basics
Cryptocurrency
Exchanges
News
News
Guides
Data
News
Exchanges
Please be aware that our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Disclaimers & Ethics notice have been updated.
NFTevening is a renowned and award-nominated media platform dedicated to reporting on the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists adhere to a rigorous set of editorial standards, guided by principles designed to uphold integrity, ensure editorial independence, and maintain unbiased reporting across all its publications.
The latest news, articles, and resources, sent to your inbox weekly.
How to Buy Altcoins: A Complete Guide for Beginners – NFT Evening
