it's basically nothing.

basically, printed money off of nothing

it's like someone made ATM technology and they just 'made' ATOcoin out of thin air and are selling it. but there is no fee for using ATM technology so ATOcoin have no value other than just trying to make profit off of someone else buying it.

another example might be, making bitcoin exchange called QWER. and bitcoin exchange made BXcoin and started selling it. but there is no fee for using QWER (bitcoin exchange).

ofc it's not 1:1 comparison but idea is similar

asking this question in /r/iota or cryptocurrency forums will get you no where because they are already heavily invested in cryptocurrency get richquick scheme

they'll say,

"oh 'xyz'coin is greaaaaat technology that's going to revolutionize the world"

"you are too dumb to understand"

"go out and do some research"

if you ask any questions that doubts their 'coins'

bitcoin-dev was able to make currency out of blockchain technology because they made artificial scarcity. that doesn't mean blockchain can be/is a currency.

some alt coins are basically:

instead of client/server(bank)

they made/copied p2p protocol(blockchain) and printed xyztorrent-bucks out of nothing and are selling you for money.

but how is p2p protocol = currency? lol