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Comment by CryptoPunk | Hacker News Reader

>>In order to purchase an altcoin such as BAT (the token behind the brave browser the article refers to), you have to first purchase Bitcoin. If you want to sell your BAT tokens, you will receive Bitcoin.

BAT is an ERC20 token on Ethereum. In order to purchase it you buy Ether, and then go to a decentralized Ethereum exchange like 0x and purchase it. When you sell BAT, you receive Ether.

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Yeah BAT was not the best example. I was just trying to illustrate that ANY altcoin can be purchased using BTC. Only some can be purchased with ETH

My point is that a token is not an altcoin, as it does not have its own independent blockchain. Almost all tokens are issued on Ethereum, and thus almost all can be purchased without any centralized intermediary using Ether. It's much easier to get into/out-of tokens using ETH than using BTC.

Okay I think we are actually arguing the same thing though. The original argument was why I thought currencies/platforms like BTC and ETH should be considered more valuable than random altcoins (independent of if they are ERC-20 or not).

I am not trying trying to argue about if BTC or ETH is better.

Oh okay, gotcha. Yeah I agree. Major currencies like ETH and BTC act as liquidity bridges for smaller cap digital assets. Tokens, which are digital assets issued on preexisting platforms, use ETH as their conduit, and altcoins, which are digital assets with their own native platform, mostly use BTC, and less commonly ETH, as theirs.

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