Altcoins also sometimes differ in the method of verification used to authenticate transactions. While some altcoins use Proof-of-Work systems, others use Proof-of-Stake consensus, which replaces miners with validators. Proof-Of-Stake mining requires a lot less energy and fewer resources than Proof-Of-Work systems since Proof-Of-Work miners have to do much more ‘work’ to mine blocks.
It’s always hard to know exactly what is driving crypto prices given the opacity of the market and a certain rather large player whose name rhymes with weather, but we think it’s probably partly related to the same market madness that drove GameStop to da moon, as well as to a desire for an alternative to central bank-issued money due to worries about the government overreach (by means of Covid restrictions), and also endorsements from chief executives at the likes of PayPal, Tesla and Twitter/Square.

The overall market cap of cryptocurrencies hit $3.3 trillion on Monday, according to CoinGecko pricing.
The liquidity pool of a crypto exchange is important because it determines what kind of crypto can be exchanged or traded and how much each trade will change the price. The liquidity pool is the total of all of the currency deposited on the exchange by every trader. If this pool is small, then every transaction can have a noticeable effect on the price of the crypto in the exchange. This instability makes it very difficult for a trader to predict how much of each currency they can get at any given time.