Bitcoin Forum

I hope someone with deep-tech knowledge can answer:

Can there be created a new bitcoin network, say BC2, and BC3 etc. based on the same technology/algoritm as bitcoin? Or is it unique in its nature? For example, i believe one can have many cell-phone network in parallell that does not need to communicate with each other. I believe one also could have many internets etc. But is there something with bitcoin that makes this impossible?

https://btc-e.com/

Check out https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

Nobody seems to know?

Are you trolling or what?  ::)

The answer is yes, refer to my previous link.  The alternate cryptocurrenices section shows other bitcoin-like protocols.

That's true


Also true, but for now it's a very small niche, which is why I said this in my Solution to the Bitcoin Foundation post:



Yes, and LTC and NVC do distinguish themselves. LTC substantially reduces block confirmation time among other things, and NVC adds proof-of-stake to proof-of-work for protection from 51% attacks. But my favorite difference for these two chains (which are gaining traction (https://btc-e.com/)) are simply that they are not Bitcoin. That allows for two important safety measures: an outlet to express dissatisfaction with circumstances surrounding Bitcoin; and a technical and economic backup if a problem arises with Bitcoin like the unforseen chain fork we recently experienced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law)

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I don't see the correlation, but for the record what appears to make cheetahs endangered is as follows:


I don't see how genetic diversity would help with that.


Traction is already here. Much of the coin's early life was spent around $.04, and even that was considered traction over the other failed alt-coins which were/are fractions of a penny, which is why I focused on it and not anything else at the time. Today LTC's exchange rate is about $0.50. People around Bitcoin in the early days may remember similar pricing patterns.

I actually think Litecoin's inflation rate makes a stronger case for it gaining market traction because there are already as many litecoins as bitcoins in circulation, more so actually due to a faster inflation rate (about 16M LTC currently).


I believe inflation rate plays little role. What's more important is that there is a reasonable cap on total amount of coins.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax.  Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

Well, that's probably true.  The lunies could still use Bitcoin without trouble, but Mars pretty much would have to start their own blockchain.

Sure. When we talk about civilizations that extend beyond a single planet then the 10 minute confirmation time can be called a "fundamental flaw" that makes alternatives viable/necessary.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

WTF man? BetaMax was the bomb! ;D

Seriously, as I said to other skeptics in the thread of my post then:


LTC was about $0.04 - $0.05 then. Maybe I'll remember to come back and quote this thread when LTC is over $1.

Sure, but it wasn't first to market, VHS was.  VHS won.  Betamax wasn't better enough for the early adopters to switch, due to the network effect.  Bitcoin has the first to market advantage, and the potential ability to annex any real improvements that an alt-chain can produce anyway.  If the 2 minute interval that LTC uses really offers a market advantage, Bitcoin can steal that advantage.  There are only a few things about the way the network actually works that can't be messed with, including the 21 M BTC limit.

Hmm, actually Betamax was first to market:


But I agree with your sentiment. First to market will certainly have the advantage unless, like you say, competition has significant improvement allowing it to catch up.

This crypto-currency movement we're all a part of is interesting, though, because it deals with monetary aspects as well as technical considerations. I do believe at a certain point a crypto-currency is probably beyond challenge due to market share, but I don't believe Bitcoin is there yet.

What I see happening is Bitcoin leading the way to global acceptance of crypto-currency. Similar to gold I believe you'll be able to exchange bitcoins for goods and services around the globe. However, we're a very long way from that, so long that I believe alternate market choices to Bitcoin will also spread in adoption to eventually reach the whole globe. Presently it looks like there will be three global blockchains: Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Novacoin. Absent any marked improvement over the offerings of those 3 coins nothing else will gain that level of acceptance.  So we will see a "lock in" effect to market share, but this will include more than Bitcoin.

My BTC2 will distinguish itself in many good ways:

1. It will be started by much more miners in the beginning - hence more even distribution.
2. It will kick ass the early shadowy murky early adopters of todays BTC
3. I will get into BTC2 much earlier than I did in BTC, hence recover the losses when my BTC has no longer any value

Wanna join the chain?

I think there can only be two real cryptocurrencies, just like Coke and Pepsi.
Bitcoin is no 1, Litecoin is no 2. I guess Bitcoin will have 90% of the market share of total cryptocurrencies in dollarvalue, Litecoin 9%, and Shitcoin 1...N will have 1% at most.

The problem with shitcoin 1...n is that the less network hashpower they got, the less secure and attractive they will be.

Bitcoin has now gained such a critical mass of hashpower and users that It is unlikely that any other open source currency can threaten it. Litecoin might have a chance to attract some users and survive as little brother.

I've never even heard of Novacoin, and a search for that term yielded only this very post.  What is it?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it.  A PoW and PoS hybrid that uses Scrypt in the PoW part, presumedly to made GPU/ASIC mining impossible.  I've seen no method of PoS that I personally couldn't really monkey with, so I'm biased against any such thing from the start.  I don't think it has legs.

Yeah, I remembered.

A fundamental flaw in bitcoin will extremely likely affect the altcoins as well. Most of them are forked from the same code base, and are only different in a few points.

Also true in a non-technical sense: if it turns out that bitcoin has a big problem and thus suffers a blow big enough to derail it, people will be talking of cryptocurrencies (at least the block-chain based ones) as a failure for a long time to come. Maybe the idea will be picked up again in 50-100 year, but none of the current altcoins will 'take over' bitcoins place.