Start here · Essential guide
Altcoins Explained: Categories and Differences
A plain guide to altcoin categories: layer 1 chains, utility and governance tokens, stablecoins, meme coins and more, and how their risks and price drivers differ.
Market Fundamentals
Altcoins and Token Economics
Understanding how coins other than Bitcoin differ and how tokens are designed.
Coin Burns and Buybacks: Do They Change Value
How token burns remove supply, how buybacks differ, and why the effect on price is uncertain even when the arithmetic of a smaller supply looks simple.
Ethereum and Gas Fees: How Network Use Affects Cost
Why smart contract networks charge gas fees, how the fee is calculated from gas used and gas price, and why costs rise when many people use the network at once.
Fully Diluted Valuation vs Market Cap
How fully diluted valuation differs from market cap, a worked example with simple numbers, and the situations in which either figure can give a misleading picture.
How Coins Get Listed and the Price Effects of Listings
How tokens get listed on centralized and decentralized exchanges, what listing involves, and why price behavior around listing announcements is mixed and uncertain.
Initial Coin Offerings and Token Launches: A Risk Primer
A history of token launch methods, from ICOs to airdrops and IDOs, and the main risks: weak disclosure, concentrated supply, legal uncertainty and outright fraud.
Layer 2 Networks and Scaling Explained
How layer 2 networks, including rollups, sit on top of base chains to reduce fees and increase capacity, and what trade-offs and risks come with them.
Meme Coins and the Role of Attention
How attention, community and social media shape the prices of meme coins that have no cash flows, why they are so volatile, and the risks of treating them as investments.
Token Supply Schedules, Vesting and Unlocks
How vesting schedules, cliffs and token unlocks release supply over time, a worked example with simple numbers, and why the price impact of an unlock is uncertain.
Tokenomics Basics: Reading a Token Design
A beginner's guide to tokenomics: what allocation, emissions, burns, utility and governance describe, and the questions that help you read a token design critically.
Related topics
More in market fundamentals
Price Drivers What moves crypto prices, from cycles and history to market cap and news. Volatility and Trends Why prices swing and how trends are described. Supply and Halving How fixed supply, issuance and halvings relate to price discussions. Macro and Regulation How policy, rates and law enter crypto price discussions.