Ehhh, as most exchanges sit today, all alt coins that do not have a USD paring on something like coinbase get their value directly from bitcoin. So if bitcoin goes up, the value of your alt coin goes up. Owning a lesser known alt coin (for now) gives you the benefit of BTC value AND the coin/tokens value on the market.
This can all change if more parings comes to coinbase etc but for now, this is a pretty closed market based almost solely on BTC
RE: Bitcoin vs Altcoins?