Bitcoin Forum

Why do they keep popping up and more importantly staying? Isn't just one or two coins enough? Why do we need so many, what's the point, what does anybody gain from that? It just seems impractical to me and I want to understand it.

Are there too many hot chicks on the Asian thread?  I think not, my friend.  Of good things, there are never enough

Because launching a new coin is easy.


99% of them don't stay, they die away, but as long as there is someone to move the blockchain the coin is alive.


Who can define what's enough? It's mostly open source so anyone can launch their own coin if they want and that's what people are doing.


We don't, most of them will die away, but there's a lot of crypto enthusiastics, developers and opportunists who want to launch their own coin for what ever reason. Some do it for fun or joke, some for serious business, some aiming for pump'n'dump. There are plenty of reasons.


As I wrote above: some coins push the current technology forward or try to become a legitimate currency and/or business, but most (shitcoins) are just for people to try to make money with them.


No matter how useless the coin is, if it gets listed on an exchange, there's ALMOST always someone who makes a profit selling them, usually it's the dev or miners who get them cheap.

There are many reasons. Including:

• people want to experiment with blockchains 
• people want to launch pump and dump coin to make money.
• people create fake wallet with trojan to steal your coins
• people want a coin for their community
• some started as joke (dogecoin)

Scammers need to make money from noobs who invest in them  :)

Because it's fun. And cheap to make one...

All coins lead to BTC. Namecoin and Ethereum is different as they actually serve a purpose; namecoin being domain registry and ethereum for creating contracts/applications.

Are there other cryptocoins that serve their own purpose other than a currency? Maybe buttcoin.

Good things also have a tendency of being useful.


Thank you, an excellent post.


Ironically Dogecoin is on the list of the 'better' coins I've made back when I thinking which coin to choose for my site.


Well, I would say coins that focus on privacy and anonymity serve a purpose too, but they are useless as you can't use them anywhere.

Rumor has it that a CEO of an cryptocurrency exchange, i.e., Cryptsy, trading altcoins wouldn't be able to afford a Florida mansion if only trading one or two altcoins. He needs 100s. And, when Cryptsy goes kaputski, as we're witnessing now, said CEO simply goes to China and opens up a Cryptsy clone to trade ... wait for it ... hundreds of altcoins, most having no utility, again, as we're seeing now. BTW, Paul Vernon, the CEO in question, denies that the Chinese Cryptsy clone and Cryptsy are related in spite of having the same email address to contract both. Perhaps, that's just a fluke, easily explained away by those sucking Paul's Floppy Disk on a daily basis. HAHAHA

We need as many coins and innovations as possible so when this does go huge we'll know what works, what failed and what people like and dont like.
All these coins are just tests for one day when crypto takes over.

because they earn bitcoin from mining.

The problem is most coins being created everyday are not innovative. Their source were all copied and pasted.

more of the coins ,more of the merry in the crypto world. it all depends upon how it stands out in due course time ;)

One word.
Innovation.

There are here to innovate and build new ideas within crypto not already explored with bitcoin.

Because people is not enough with just 1 coin, that's why they made altcoin (for the alternative)

The maker earns money with it. Thats the point.

People like diversity and I think taht it is good to have many different coins, not just one or two. Like in fiat currencies. And is also kind of competition.

All altcoins are a scam tbh

People have their own visions of what cryptocurrency should be and if Bitcoin is not fulfilling their dreams some will create others. Why not? Even you could make your own coin and try to get it popular. Chances are huge that you won't success but hey, if you have some extra free time go for it ;)

True nothing will take over bitcoins now.

That's actually pretty amusing even if it's not supposed to be. Hehe



As someone else said, there's no innovation in over 99% of the coins.


I don't know what you're saying to be honest.


Competition between what, coins that you can't use anywhere?


Crypto implies anonymity and security, and Bitcoin has neither.

btc too slow for everyday transactions.  why would you or a shop owner want to wait like 20 mins for all the confirmations, even more so for micro transactions of a few £$..

Alts definitely have a gap to fill with regards to this, but which one will is the million dollar question..

You will probably need to have very many coins if at all you want to gain more from the trading you will be performing. People usually want to invest in places where there are very high returns. I therefore do think that the reason for having very many coins is to be able to engage in trade on a full force. There are always high returns and you can invest in more than one area. I am thinking if a person invests in lending of the coins and at the same time doing the bitcoin mining.

it's an open field and everyone is free to make his own coin if he wants, I agree it's not practical and new coins add nothing mostly but then just ignoring the new coins offering nothing new is enough to make them go away with time.

Because launching a new coin is easy. And everyone wants to have its own currency

Because launching a new coin is not that hard.
Plus everyone wants to have theiyre own currency
as they believe that it will bring money in.
But of course it is a lot harder that it seems to successfully launch a coin.

Because the founders are hobos and they want to make money off pre-mines and pump and dump schemes.

because more and more owners get involved daily

You should trademark this. It's catchy and a valid point.

Reminds me of the guy from the "if Google was a guy" video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOBzWF0Aws (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOBzWF0Aws) .

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it's a free market, the market is the only thing that determines the number and that is one of the cool things about crypto's of having no control over them. I do agree they are more than needed but the only thing that will stop more crypto's is less people using them.

In a free world, any one can create a new coin....

Come on man would you not like to have your own money system if you are given an opportunity ? What is so impractical about that ? Its very likely indeed.