Bitcoin Forum

So, being relatively new to Bitcoin and crypto-currency in general, I have been looking around at all these "altcoins" that have sprung up following the relative success of Bitcoin... I assume because the value went from mere cents to ~US$650 per Bitcoin, so those who missed the Bitcoin boat are trying to launch new currencies to emulate that success and make $$$  ???

My questions relate to the possible fragmentation of the crypto-currency segment with all of these altcoins popping up and what this may mean for crypto-currency in general.

For starters, it seems like there is a new "ICO" popping up every other week, each new altcoin possibly fragmenting the market that little bit more. Do we really need more than one crypto-currency? What are the advantages of "altcoins"?  Do they offer any real benefits above Bitcoin? If so, what are they? Because I don't see the point, other than to create an artificial trading market??  ???

What are the advantages of "altcoins"?
sometimes they're having unique feature which bitcoin don't have just like monero
if you're talking about ICO just see now ICO becoming a new way to scam people for proof,see OPHION few months back,they're scamming about hundreds btc,altcoin actually being used for trading to increase the amount of bitcoin not for being actual currency like bitcoin
if the dev saying they want to grew up altcoin to be currency which being used widely,seems BS as they only care about ICO and the TRADING activities

There was way more fragmentation back in 2013/2014, and there has been next to no affect on the value of Bitcoin and the community surrounding cryptocurrencies, aside from more speculation occurring with these other altcoins. Fragmentation will never really be an issue, or at least not based on what I could tell. If it does matter, I'd be surprised.

altcoins doesn't fragment market at all. they are doing their own thing and this is happening in every open source technology, and since money is involved in crypto world then there is more enthusiasm for creating new ones.

but if you look at other big open source things like linux for example there is literary thousands of different distros available because of the same thing, it is open source so everybody creates their own and tries to improve it and add new/different features to it.

Agree. More altcoins in market, more choices to choose from and we can choose those who are serious in crypto developing. Because of many developer, some are becoming scam. Thats why its important to research the coins first.

I understand what you're saying but we wouldn't be much different from a dictatorship if people weren't allowed to use/create coins as they please. Everyone dreams of getting rich and new altcoins serve to fuel this dream for people who missed the Bitcoin early adopters stage. I think having altcoins around is a good thing especially since most of them are traded against Bitcoin anyway. They help keep the crypto sphere fresh and interesting.

Alt coins are the testing area for new features and innovation. We are not worried about Alt coins, because they have nearly no support network compared to Bitcoin, and it's the support network that makes Bitcoin so robust. Yes, these Alt coins can grow bigger and stronger, but Bitcoin will always have the security track record to back up it's position. ^smile^

Bitcoin's network effects will always make it the go-to Crypto. The alts are, as others have said, very important for the ecosystem as they allwo new features and visions to be tested in a relatively risk-free way. The best amongst them will sustain and reward the creators and early adopters. But BTC is the reserve crypto.

Lots of altcoins are actually far superior to bitcoin,  some offer greater anonymity others offer faster transaction times,  a lot of altcoins are just trying to fix existing problems with bitcoin.  The thing bitcoin has that these other coins don't is trust and also its passed the test of time.

Thanks for all of the informative answers. The common thread seems to be that altcoins allow for (testing of) new features and maybe new/fixed mechanics to show proof of concept with regards to fixing "flaws" in Bitcoin.

I understand the "more" anonymous thing and faster transactions... but other than that... what else could an altcoin provide that Bitcoin doesn't already?

Or am I too focused on just being able to send "money" to someone, relatively privately, relatively quickly with relatively small fees? Are there actually some "whiz bang" features on offer from other altcoins?

you can never deny that there can always be a better technology than bitcoin. that much is for sure. but whether or not this technology has been created so far is another question.
and some altcoins are actually trying to do this, to create new technology to compete with bitcoin but they succumb to the usual pump and dump and eventually become useless and abandoned like many others.

Seeing the success of bitcoins and the income behind it other programmers have created other cryptocurrency with features not included in bitcoins. The reason behind is of course to earn money. If there are advantages this cryptocurrencies will give us it is as a replacement of bitcoins if it fails. It also gives us other options to trade. But for me we really don't need altcoins but as long as other cryptocurrency exist let's just hoard it for potent increase in value.

It's true that most -- I'd say at least 99% if I was one of those people who made up statistics on the spot -- altcoins are just created to further the alt-ponzi business. However, that doesn't mean that most altcoins are useless. Aside from the new concepts and ideas that are brought about by a few coins, some altcoins with an acceptable level of community support are also sometimes preferable to use as digital financial tokens rather than Bitcoins. As a comparison, take the case of a real casino. Rather than walking around the place with a stash of paper money, bettors swap their cash for chips and use those to make their bets. Once they are done gambling, they then swap those chips back into money. In the case of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin would be the "stash of paper money" while a chosen altcoin would be the "chips". Instead of the issue of portability and security, the "chips" solve the issue of slow block times and accumulating transaction fees in multiple transactions. There would be volatility of value involved once the chosen altcoin is "swapped back" into Bitcoin, but Bitcoin itself is volatile anyway.

Also, fragmentation is not going to be a problem for Bitcoin since all altcoins are pegged to the value of Bitcoins anyway. Those that have tried to peg themselves to fiat or other assets before have not been successful because a decentralized currency requires the consensus of the majority which none of them have been able to obtain on that specific issue.

(But in general, most altcoins are ponzi trash and script kiddy projects. So yeah.)

So, as I figured... for the most part (the casino example aside), the only reason you'd want to get involved in altcoins is to get in on the ground floor when you can pick them up for next to nothing... then, market them hard, pump them up on the exchanges and then dump as many as you can for the largest amount of bitcoins you can get  before the price crashes :-\

I suspect this is why I had pretty much never heard of any of the altcoins before stumbling across the altcoin forum here. As I see it, the general population have at least 'heard' about Bitcoin, as there have been the odd story here and there in the mainstream media (most of it was typical talk to some half assed "cyber security consultant" talking head for a sound bite when the silk road thing blew up)... However, what has there been about altcoins? zip...

Seems like the way forward to make lots of $$$ out of this cryptocurrency stuff is to create an altcoin and run an ICO while running a cloudmining/HYIP/guaranteed results investment program :P

this is exactly how it works with altcoins, you have figured it out correctly my friend.
if you take a look at coinmarketcap.com or any similar site with historic data, you can see this happening in real life by looking at the charts.

but also this doesn't mean these altcoins don't have anything to offer though. they in fact have introduced many new features to the world of crypto-currencies.

This. Bitcoin still comprises most of the market. Altcoins are a form of innovation, some scams some not.

As far as too many altcoins, how is anyone to know how many altcoins will be needed in the future? This is all new technology and needs to be given the time to work itself out.

I am not seeing any altcoin that pops up at this stage having potential to fragment bitcoin easily within few years. Even ethereum like highly speculated alt get effected by bug in their contracts making it to loss almost half of its value within few days.

Bitcoin is king of cryto currencies.

"bitcoin is a king of crypto currencies" this is not anything new i guess,everybody know's that bitcoin was actually the first
cryptocurrency that was used commonly by people.
I dont think that we can have some altcoin going bigger than btc actually.

I don't think that fragmentation of cryptocurrency (i.e. Bitcoin) will become a problem because of the increased number of issued altcoins. The reason is that Bitcoin has by far the largest network effect in terms of developer community, market acceptance, and network strength. Almost all altcoins are solely tradable for Bitcoin, while only very few are tradable for fiat. Real trade against goods and services is almost absent in the altcoin universe.

So, to a significant degree, altcoins depend on Bitcoin. Most are bought solely for speculative reasons. They mostly compete among themselves. In the end, useful features of altcoins may be integrated into Bitcoin, sidelining the coins that first introduced the features.

ya.ya.yo!

Subtract all the "dead" coins and also the "Pump n dumps" and you are left with only a few good options in the Alt coin scene.... I would not trust any other Alt coin at this moment, because most of

them are not supported by many merchants and services and they create only a small network to feed their sales. The Alt coins that are growing are the ones that created some sort of service like

{gambling} to spread their coins. Fragmentation was never a problem, because these Alt coins take only a small percentage of the total Crypto currency cap, compared to Bitcoin. ^smile^

Yeah, what I was initially concerned about, was with so many altcoins floating around, that merchants (aka. goods and service providers), money exchangers etc might be hesitant to enter the crypto currency world and therefore delay accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment because there were so many alternatives.

However, it seems like there are actually very few altcoins that make it past the pump and dump stage, and fewer still that are traded for fiat... with, as pointed out by the various folks here, most altcoins are really only traded on their own gambling site and/or for bitcoins.

There is a real lack of goods and services that can be purchased in my local area/country using Bitcoins, and I'd like that to change... it all just seems to be "Bitcoin exchanges" which isn't that helpful.  :-\

Not being negative or against new coins, but the most ico coming is just to the developers get your bitcoins, as they make a new coin make ico collect 5 btc for each btc and let the coin die almost instant, some coins hold 3 months and are pumped, but the most usually dies.

That is the general idea. 99% altcoin developers is not creating something better or unique. They are cloning existing code, tweaking it a little. They know it won't last long.
Currently we have over 650 altcoins created, most of them are cheaper that dust and never will be anything better. Worrying about them is like worrying that you step on some ants when you walk.

Altcoins are just a copy of bitcoins its primary reason is for income. Bitcoin has shown the world that there is money in cryptocurrency, its a multi-billion business. Companies wanted to grab the opportunity to earn billions and the trick is to make a copy of bitcoins to earn big. But I am not saying that altcoins has no benefits to bitcoin users. Altcoins can be the substitute for bitcoin when it will breakdown.