An unfortunate side effect of the recent ICO boom, specifically the many "altcoins" built on ethereum, is a conflation of terms between "altcoin" and "smart con

An unfortunate side effect of the recent ICO boom, specifically the many "altcoins" built on ethereum, is a conflation of terms between "altcoin" and "smart contract," and therefore also what it means to "mine" a coin. Yes, these ethereum "altcoins" are just as tradeable as any other crypto coin. However, it would be more accurate to refer to them as "smart contracts," because you cannot "mine" them in the traditional sense of redirecting CPU cycles. Let's define "mining" an altcoin as receiving that altcoin in exchange for services. For example, you can "mine" BTC or ETH by providing the service of compute cycles. Then how do you "mine" an altcoin that is really an ethereum smart contract? The service could literally be anything, depending on the contract. It could mean anything from leasing disk space, to freelance programming. If you have a generic mining rig setup, you can probably redirect it to mine ETH, BTC, or any CPU based proof-of-work coin. But your CPU can't freelance for people. It can't lease disk space. It can't fulfill any arbitrary ethereum contract. There needs to be a distinction between the term "altcoin" and "smart contract," because even though you can trade them both on exchanges, the process for receiving the coin in exchange for services can vary widely. It's misleading to refer to "mining BTC" and "mining <insert smart contract here>" as interchangeable ideas.