Bitcoin Forum

While Bitcoin there are a few scaling options, it appears that a number of Bitcoin investors have been switching to Altcoins, and may not switch back to Bitcoins any time soon .
What will happen if investors continuously switch to altcoins? Will bitcoin crash ?

the question is switch to altcoins for what?

for a better security? Hah, you wish.
for a better code? not really.
for a better developers team (as far as coding is concerned)? again no
for a more peer reviewed and bug free code? absolutely not!
for cheaper transactions? not really, because the only time they use it is when they send coins to and from exchanges to trade them!

for usage as a currency? obviously not, there is no where to spend majority of altcoins and only a couple of them such as litecoin have some use cases which not that many uses.

so i ask the question again: why would they switch to altcoins?
the answer is simple: because altcoins are rising more because of their pumps and also because many are caught up in the hype and all the advertisement they hear about how good XYZcoin is. and they miss the fact that most of them are broken, the top ones have terrible scaling issue and are heading to a much higher transaction fees than bitcoin has or will have.
and you know what, when the altcoin dumpings started you'll see how many will stick around.

I don't think so, although there are a lot of investors have swiched to Altcoins but Bitcoin is still there, its community still grows up and so that, Bitcoin may not crash

I think some altcoin will replace bitcoin in the future, this is a very young world, and alts have many new and novel implementations, it would be good to keep a percentage in bitcoin and invest in other alts

I think we should just stick to Bitcoin for now and update it with the necessary fixes.

Best way to make profit now is to buy Bitcoin and trade it with Altcoins. That can make you a lot of money.

As Pooya87 mentioned, I don't see why we should switch to altcoins...

At first sight, altcoins might look like better versions of bitcoin, but they all have their disadvantages and I'm not sure if we should just all turn all our Bitcoins into a certain altcoin... If we do, I want to be the first though, as I'll be rich then! :o

Anyways, multiple problems Bitcoin has should be fixed soon with updates like Segwit, ETC!

Those are fools who leave behind Bitcoins for alts, they are called alts for a reason. Nothing will happen to Bitcoin but these investors shall loose their money and shall go bankrupt trying to regain their lost money. Look at the alt coin history, how many of them last, Bitcoin has stood the test of time and will always be standing strong. I would advise you to ignore the alts only stay focused on Bitcoins, just cause of a handful investors going away it won't crash.

Depends what altcoin you're talking about.  This is about altcoins becoming bigger, and when some of them basically copy Bitcoin's security systems anyway, they can be pretty secure.
Obviously Bitcoin is the most "matured" cryptocurrency so to speak - but this doesn't mean the code has to be bad.  The code will get better as more ex-Bitcoin users start to get involved (which they already are).
Completely unrelated points.  Transactions are still cheaper in many alts.  The question is more about whether they would withstand the pressure of having as many transactions as Bitcoin.

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The problem is that you're looking at current problems with some alts, which results in a lot of vague arguments.  You need to look at arguments for the future of Bitcoin instead.  Bitcoin is not just automatically great all the time.
 

I think so, some Altcoins will rise up and replace Bitcoin in the future but it will happen in a far future because Bitcoin is really difficult to be replaced now

The problems with Bitcoin will remain for the near future. There is still no consensus between the users and the miners, and proposals such as SegWit is not supported by a large section of the miners. Either Bitcoin will grow despite these issues, or it will die a natural death.

Bitcoin is not great all the time and, while it tries to fix the issues, this happens very slowly.
That's why actually diversifying your portfolio, whether you trade of hold, is not a bad idea at all.
And that's what I expect many do now.

Although this doesn't explain the pump of ... some altcoins...

For now, I would prefer Bitcoin then Altcoins because its price is high and I believe that it will rise up higher so that I  can earn a better profit

Both.. Bitcoin and Altcoin :)
Some altcoin  has really grate idea behind it, so some altcoins has really grate future..

Yes, I agree that many bitcoin holders are giving a try to the alt coin investments but to be honest, I don't think it is something that will be any kind of threat to the existence of the bitcoin. Bitcoin is still the best and most used crypto currency and it will continue to grow in the coming years. I don't see any altcoin at this moment that has potential to surpass bitcoin's level in terms of the user base or price.

No i think,no matter how many of big investors switched to altcoin trading bitcoin trading support will never be empty and will never be dead,they will be still in bitcoins too but in a different way.Bitcoins will just be their partial payment method for altcoins

i am agree with you because i am sure that there are many big investors in bitcoin trading too and they giving support so the market will still make a good movement in down and up for the price. but some of them don't doing trading in the market, they only saving their market because they don't want to learn something in trading.

I do think that some investors are moving away from bitcoin. And going to altcoins, However, this is temporary only. They will still go back to bitcoin ecosystem once the high transaction fee has been resolved. Until till, we can't deny that they are playing in the altcoin markets, pumping and dumping any coins they want.

Bitcoin will not be crushed cause of altcoins. There are investors who have switched on altcoins already, but at the same time the number of bitcoin investors is keep growing. You see, altcoins are interested mostly for people who haven't money and they invest in cheap alts with expectation that one day it will also cost 2000$ and up, but with little investment you loose little in the case if the plan doesn't come true.

No. Stop posting bullshit for signature money. You can use the same algorithm as Bitcoin, but you would not have the same security. No altcoin even comes close to the security of Bitcoin.

Bullshit again. The users have zero relevance to the quality of the code.

Actually it is. Stop promoting the scam coins because you are greedy.

as far as I know, bitcoin is still the store value of most of the altcoins around. Even now that there are some issues in scaling, the community is still growing and the price still going up. Even if there is an influx of people going to altcoins, I think bitcoin will not crash.

I don't think bitcoin will crash just because some investors are switching from bitcoins to altcoins, probably some of the investors invested on altcoins too but their major investment I'm sure would be bitcoin. They would know that for sure. And at the end of the day, they would still prefer bitcoin over altcoins.

Bitcoin is the original form and alt coins alternative.the original choice comes why do you want to go for alt coins security, transaction charge, transaction confirmation time it depends on that. But altcoins exist only with crypto enthusiasts . If any body wants to come crypto world then first choice will be bitcoin it will be for sure .

yes thats right bitcoin can not be crash. when alot of investors of bitcoin swiched an other side alot of bitcoin lover are stay with bitcoin every are earning bitcoin and then invest in bitcoin. the community of bitcoin grew up day by day.

They are Alts... so why will I bail out on the original thing, the master of the jungle for an altcoin that I am not even sure of its future. Bitcoin has come to stay and investors or not, it will always thrive. Most Altcoins today are just following put while some are even dead on arrival. So, Bitcoin all the way!

Yes it wont be crashed. Bitcoin will still remain even som switched into altcoin. altcoin is just an alternative coin it still under the bitcoin. Bitcoin was consider as a mother of all cryptocurrency.

I think there are still a very low chance of bitcoin crashing if investors swicth to altcoins as a platform of trading and exchange.If those big supporters of bitcoins remaining after all investor switch jumped into altcoin clearly bitcoins will have no support and will start to fall down

I think alts are suffering from their history of ponzi and scams (and those scams are still happening) but the market matured and great projects are rising from the ashes of others.
I do not think we have to see this as a fight between Bitcoin and Alts but more like a cooperation. Bitcoin cannot do everything because of its code. Alts are offering possibilities and opportunities but Bitcoin will stay the entry door to the crypto world for some years at least.
There are so many possible applications for blockchain that one cannot be all.
Not Bitcoin or Altcoins but Bitcoin & Altcoins.

For investors switching over to altcoin does not mean that Bitcoin will crash, they invested in Bitcoin before the overflow of altcoin and Bitcoin which is also used as the major currency for all crypto-currencies is also a criteria that Bitcoin cannot crash anytime soon.

I love both bitcoin and altcoin, cryptocurrencies developed a unique and balance ecosystem. There will be time that most of altcoins can be circulated just like bitcoin in terms of buying different items and payment of anything.

but I guess that's not possible if supporters of the bitcoin redirecting to altcoin due to the higher price bitcoin moment if all investors shifted to altcoin means it may only be temporary because only superior of the bitcoin all competing there, and the price is also lower than the bitcoin

both...never abandon bitcoin but take a large look at altcoins...

As bitcoin is expanding, it is a condition for bitcoin to last long, governments are opening up a beautiful path to the existence and development of bitcoin, and there is also a pathway for all the altcoins. Other, do not worry about that. Some altcoins are more profitable than bitcoin, which will attract people's investment, but bitcoin is always popular.

I think maybe so, if they switch to Altcoin all this is only temporary, they just want to get a profit in Altcoin, maybe they will benefit and hold Bitcoin because Bitcoin is more promising and will continue to increase in the future.

Altcoins are more volatile and explosive - therefore more attractive for speculators, and risk seekers. 
Bitcoin is almost guarantee to be asset of the future. You can't go wrong with holding BTC.
Altcoins for the most part are only temporary bubbles, predatory speculation assets and quick buck making machine.

i think both altcoin and bitcoin because bitcoin and altcoin is same as a cryptocurrency but not a same price as all altcoin and bitcoin is a future money for now you can pay anywhere.

What I normally notice is that people tend to invest in bitcoin and altcoin together. But when a person first step into cryptocurrency world. He usually starts with bitcoin. Bitcoin is a number one choice for any outsider for starting investment in cryptocurrencies. So what I feel is that it is not going anywhere. People tend to divide their investment in altcoins and bitcoin. But they never usually leave bitcoin forever.

From what i understand all the big investors are still in the bitcoin space and ETH is getting more push from companies adapting their tokens but the fact remains that ETH is not a real currency and if not for the scaling issues there is no coin better than bitcoin.There are many people coming into the alt coin space and they are just trying to make some good money when they can.

Now is really hard moment for bitcoin because of high fees, I really think continue or not using of bitcoin because for small transactions it's terrible. Investing in bitcoin mining is great idea and still bitcoin exchange or some btc idea is still good. For example if someone will offer reduced transaction fee, it will attract many customer. Bitcoin gained huge trust and is more known than any altcoin. Still don't think people will choose any altcoin over bitcoin because for example ethereum's hard fork was reason of losing many people, they didn't like that. Also imagine zcash, what was it's first price and what's now, so huge fall in days? It's not fair and that's why bitcoin is still popular, trust is main factor.

If discussing the current high fee conditions, altcoin has a good chance, I exchange bitcoin to dogecoin and send it to another wallet with no problem and with a small fee. I think it's time for altcoin to play more actively until the bitcoin condition improves as before.

Exactly! That' what I want to point out. Alt coins is short for "Alternative" coins because if you want to choose better than bitcoin then you would not settle to those altcoins but to a real coin (though frankly there is no coins that can match, fight with bitcoin). They may be using altcoins but look at it carefully because their major holdings are still in bitcoin and a litttle bit in altcoins that is for trading and investment. Well investment for some months or year then with bad news or a fall would surely make them convert it back to bitcoin and find another one because they don't have trust on it.

The point is altcoins exist mainly and treated as a way to make more bitcoins, to multiply the bitcoins you have in your possession.

It seems that investors do prefer bitcoin as a place to invest instead of altcoin which is mostly the number of coins that many all and sometimes there are infinite, so that's why bitcoin remains the first choice of status is clear and the amount is limited

I think Altcoins follow Bitcoin and can't replace Bitcoin, why? Because all value the price of Altcoin are calculated to Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the fisrt and have a big history in Cryptocurrencies, but I think ETH can compete Bitcoin in future about number one in the ranking Crypto ;D

I love it when people start posting some "facts" without any sources to back that claim. I didn't hear about any investor switching completely to some alt-coin, so I too would love it if you can present some source for your claim.

it's ridiculous as it sounds, something like that will not happen any time soon or hardly will in the future. Bitcoin is just too strong and too widespread for something like that to happen.

Do not worry, because that will never happen, bitcoin always dominates the market, its advantages can make it continue to be the strongest penny, it always leads the way for other coins.

Bitcoin will never collapse, many governments have accepted bitcoin, and they certainly will not let that happen. Do not worry about it. Altcoin is also a bitcoin analog, and it can also be profitable.

I do not think that bitcoin will crash.  If ever then every cryptocurrency will crash also because all its value are depending or based on bitcoin.  It is close to impossible that people would switch or stay with altcoin.  Bitcoin is proven and recognized now as a legit digital currency.  Considering that there are new altcoins emerging, the tendency is there are many scam of it.

Are you sure about that? Perhaps your confidence is based on the fact that bitcoin is growing in value and at the moment the demand for bitcoins grows. It's good, but who knows how long this situation can continue? Any currency without an economy cannot exist. You see the economy of bitcoin? I do not see, and therefore can not exclude the fact that bitcoin is a pyramid and all pyramids collapse.

If that is the scenario then all altcoins will have the same fate including the one you advertising.

Didn't you know that while bitcoin is having a good support continously in the market, that's the thing that making it as a strong. Bitcoin crash is possible but today I can't see it and I will only giving 0.5% for that to happened.

Can you tell me what are some of the reasons that will make bitcoin crash according to your own "analytics"? We might discussed those along with other people in the community. Let me be your guest here.

Alt coin provide more opportunity for those who missed out bitcoin early day. I myself gain more in altcoin. The fact that a lot of alt is still cheap and has room for growth makes people going for alt. Bitcoin is already more than $2500, maybe reach $3500 at the end of the year, that's less than 2x your investment. You can get higher number in alt.

I'm curious about the natural death part

Would Bitcoin turn into a shit coin? That's unlikely, so how do you fancy that, in practice? Regarding the questions raised in the OP, I think this is quite possible, really. In fact, this is what I think myself. If the issues that Bitcoin faces today are not resolved in a more or less peaceful way (as far as it can be possible at all), Bitcoin may suffer badly, and people will start dumping it either for fiat (for good or at least until the dust settles) or for major altcoins. I don't know about Ethereum, but if Litecoin gets enough money invested in it, it may well take Bitcoin's place

People are not switching to altcoin to keep their wealth there, they are there to make the profit of the fact that its just developing then convert into bitcoin in due time. So, its just a part time shift which any rational investor would do by going there to make a 260% increase for holding for few days which cannot happen in bitcoin but will just sell then keep in bitcoin because that alt coin that increase at that rate may dip at a further rate.

I would say that you should go for diversification of your wealth so that you can keep your principal amount safe as well as can earn good profits. Invest 50 percent in Bitcoins and invest 50 percent in altcoins like ethereum and monero.

no , this is wrong thing.. altcoin is help bitcoin to more famous. altcoin without bitcoin is not meaning
bitcoin is always excistence

yes no doubt about that, bitcoin is not going to crash. bitcoin is becoming more popular because the number of bitcoin users are increasing continuously, which is making bitcoin stronger, in future bitcoin will become more stronger.

The bitcoin purists are incredibly short sighted. Ethereum will likely knock bitcoin out of the number one spot within a month or two.  If NEM gets their Mijin/Catapult rolling, bitcoin won't hold a candle in raw transactions per second and transaction fees. This bitcoin superiority complex and overconfidence could be bitcoin's undoing in time.  Other coins are quickly trying to develop the tech to bring the scalability and services businesses need to reality. Innovation and change are a constant in life. Adapt or die.

I respect bitcoin, I hold a bunch of bitcoin, but the fact of the matter is that these altcoins are not just some scams with inferior code that will never amount to anything. (well, maybe 95% of them are, leaving about 30-40 good projects out of the 700+ coins out there)

Altcoin purists are shortsighted because BTC is still the golden key. Without a rise in the price of bitcoin, your precious altcoins wouldn't be going anywhere. Both feed into each other.  Until exchanges can trade any currency with any currency directly, BTC will remain the golden key.  You only pay a transaction fee when you have to move money around from exchange to exchange anyways.  Bitcoin is not going to be widely adopted by any business at this point with the fees though.. if we want cryptos to be used to pay for say an ebay auction or used at amazon, we'll have to come up with a solution that has much faster confirmation times with much lower fees.

It's in everyone's best interest to get to that outcome. (Hurry up NEM with that mijin)

Also, I believe proof of work is going to fall by the wayside eventually. The coin on top in 3 years won't be proof of work based, or at least not 100% proof of work, that's my prediction. A blend of the two where the proof of stake has the fast block times seems to work nicely. If we could have blockchain trim technology which Pascal is promising, that would be really big. Child chains have promise, but to me seem like more of a gimmick to just have more coin ICOs at this point.

I don't think that the current issues can be resolved in a "peaceful" way (i.e with consensus). So I assume that in the future there will be ugly quarrels. And something similar to what happened with Ethereum earlier (the emergence of Ethereum Classic) can occur with BTC as well. There can be a split. This is going to result in complete chaos and the alts can benefit out of it.

Even ETH which is close in rank to Bitcoin will find it difficult to overtake Bitcoin in crypto marketing-system,...

Even ETH which is close in rank to Bitcoin will find it difficult to overtake Bitcoin in crypto marketing-system,...

Bitcoin and altcoin cannot be separated. in 2011 we know the price of the bitcoin had fallen in price $230 1 BTC. but as the number of coins new and competing projects are popping up in blockchain technology development (ICO). This makes the bitcoin strengthened back up now ...so  :)

Altcoins are very important to the cryptocurrency  world, espacially lately sunce bitcoin transactions has become very slower and have more fees into them, apart from the price some popular cryptocurencies provide or claim they have better features than bitcoin, and i see that people are starting to invest in them, so we may seee them rise in the near future.

Honestly I'd love to switch over to doge or something, to use as money, but trying to find merchants that accept anything besides bitcoin is a fool's errand.  Those merchants just don't exist, and it sucks.  I'm tired of transaction fees and long confirmation times, as are a lot of people.  I'd much rather use fiat to buy stuff anyway, but I do occasionally buy things with crypto.  Eh.  Maybe it'll get better, but right now I'm very pessimistic about BTC.

That is the truth,everyone is tired and sick of the confirmation delays and the time it takes to get one confirmation,i am not worried about the transaction fees even though it is high,but all i need is to have faster confirmation times if i am giving this much fees and it is really frustrating to wait for hours to get the coins through.I am using alt coins now for instant deals.

Well diversifying is good but there's nothing showing that Bitcoin is not going to succeed so what stops you from keeping your funds in Bitcoin so that you can make greater profits than risk diversification.

You are right, Nowadays bitcoin price increase more day by day. so automatically the fees increase too. but i think the solution of this high fees is on altcoins by doing exchange every times you want to send bitcoin, this is one of important things of other cryptocurrencies, and without them i think we can see many problems.

I will use them both bitcoin and altcoin, because they are both useful actually. Altcoin is a big help to those people who are not capable to buy a huge amount of bitcoin or getting a chance to earn bitcoin big. Then they sell or sold their altcoins it will automatically transfer to their bitcoin wallet balance. And that's what altcoin can do to us.

If bitcoin doesn't manage to scale both onchain and offchain in ~1-2 months it will lose first place, assuming ethereum's rally stops. That would be a tragedy because, even though bitcoin has the worst tech out there, being released first, also has a governance problem and can't adapt, tech is just bad. The moment it loses first place, the faith in brand will be dead and people will sell.  Bitcoin needs alot of time to auto adjust it's difficulty to a lower hashrate ( many will turn miners off because it wont be that profitable ) and that may cause a snowball effect.

I only have few btc now but i sincerely hope it doesn't die. It would be a black mark for the whole space.

Don't need to worry about that, Bitcoin is still the best e-currency ever so that Bitocin is not so easy to die like that

for me i would go altcoin like eth , litecoin , doge the confirmation time is just too long , the fees are so high now unlike before like 10 cents to send a transaction and can get confirm on 1 blocks and now takes 1 hours or more to confirm a 1 dollar fee transaction , im thinking to hold altcoin and use shapeshift to send a btc transaction.

Indeed. I'd rather use bitcoin than this Altcoins because I could save more time on bitcoin, compare to altcoins that you are going to process transactions before you could use it. Also earning Altcoins is not that easy unlike earning bitcoin which you could easily earn by doing Signature Campaigns which do pays bitcoin, but you could also earn Altcoin by joining Signature Campaign in the Altcoin Section.

The only problem is, if you do really need the money, then joining Signature Campaigns who pays bitcoin is the right choice for you, because if you are going to join the Altcoin Signature Campaign then you have to wait for up to 2 months before you could get your bounty, but it is worth the wait. :)

Bitcoin is the best e-currency as of now because of the high price . And I think they still number 1 in the next many years or decades. I think you need to be resdy because we dont know when the bitcoin die maybe today or maybe tomorrow no one knows. But i hope bitcoin will live long because bitcoin gives opportunity to us earn money even you are single , marriend and employed or unemployed you can do bitcoin.

Just having advanced features is nowhere near enough

Many altcoins already have them and had them for years, and so what? Really, what is the purpose of being able to process thousands transactions per second if a coin doesn't process even 10k transactions daily? Litecoin is Bitcoin on juice, its transactions are 4 times faster and a lot cheaper at that, while it has been there for almost six years, and what did it change in the end? It still costs roughly 100 times less than Bitcoin. The bottom line is that Bitcoin may succumb only to internal problems if they start to heavily get in the way and become literally roadblocks to future development and improvement

Yes, bitcoin is a potent and powerful money, and we can easily prove it with government acceptance. However, it is not the most potential coin, there are many other altcoins that have the same power as bitcoin.

I think investors are still interested in bitcoin maybe they switch to altcoin because of the expensive bitcoin fee for transactions, bitcoin has extraordinary features and higher price than altcoin, able to make investors still choose bitcoin, in coinmarketcap bitcoin still ranked first.

Lots of altcoin's price and future still depends on bitcoin, so the investors can't really ignore bitcoin.

It is the advantage of bitcoin, although bitcoin has any problem, it always has more advantages than all other currencies, the long-term existence has given it a tremendous power.

I am using Ethereum now together with BTC and even though I've no intention of changing from BTC to anything else as main currency, I've to say I'm very satisfied with ETH both technically and on the price term... The blocks and 6 confirmations takes minutes, low fees, quick TX and many additional features, as well as a big rise in price same as BTC but in Altcoin community it's impressive.

I think due to delays in bitcoin transaction and confirmation delays had kept people to temporarily divert to
 altcoins such as ethereum, Doge e.t.c  It can never be a set back for bitcoin  because none of these alcoins can withstand the  global acceptability of bitcoin maybe after rectifying all these delays and high cost of transaction things will come back to normalcy then bitcoin will restore fully.

If investors keep switching to altcoins then obviously bitcoin will crash as more and more bitcoin leak towards the buying of altcoins. However this scenario in my opinion is extremely unlikely to happen for a number of reasons. Bitcoin is the first crypto currency which means that it will always have the trust and status unmatched by even major altcoins such as ethereum.

For example, there are much rarer metals than gold on the planet earth that have the thins needed to make a good currency or asset. However people had this trust in gold, much like crypto people have an innate trust in bitcoin. It's not all about high end technology but rather being good at what you do. In bitcoin case it is mainly the storage of wealth.

I don't think that people with good knowledge about cryptos would switch to altcoins.If they are doing so,absolutely they are doing a wrong thing.Bitcoin price has been gradually increasing and no more manipulation is found in bitcoin.Today's bitcoin price expresses its true value.But Altcoins donot express so.Even if there is an increase in altcoins price,we should know that it is being pumped and investors in it would loose their money soon when it would be dumped.Altcoins have no special features to attract bitcoin investors.Only very few of them are legit.

Altcoins these alternatives to Bitcoin each have their own individual characteristics and algorithms. Bitcoin may be the most well-known crytocurrency with its developed infrastructure and growing fan base.
Altcoins play a vital role in the crytocurrency world, encouraging further decentralisation, innovation and competition.

I will choose the bitcoin as the best current so Altcoins because of its high price and I am sure will go up higher so I can get better profit, and need to store bitage in bitcoin and invest in other alts.

Even how many currencies in the world buy that bitcoin, your funny question is they buy Altcoin with their bitcoin of course they keep buying bitcoin :P

Bitcoin is the strongest and gives him an advantage, but they do not miss the opportunity to earn with other crypto-currencies.

i will choose bitcoin too but if we want to increase the amount of bitcoin, we can doing trading bitcoin with altcoin and if the price of altcoin is increase, then its the time for us to reach much of profit and in the end our bitcoin will increase too. the amount of profit is depend on how much our capital  which we used in trading, if we have many bitcoin, then we can make big profit.

IMO Bitcoin is like USD, Ethereum is like EUR maybe, Litecoin is GBP etc... so there is surely place for at least 100 altcoins ))))

This is quite normal, the expansion of bitcoin can cause some bad variations, so they choose altcoins to avoid undue hassle.

i think it is depending on situation, some time you have to invest in bitcoin when you realize that the price of bitcoin is going to increase, while other time you need to invest you money in some potentially good altcoin. specially when you realize that the price of bitcoin is going to stay stable for some time. i personally distribute my bitcoin in different altcoins.

I see your point though I am pretty sure that the people that invest their money into Bitcoin wouldn't want to think that the coin is similar to the USD because they changed their money into something else for a reason and that is so that they could have another option to put their money in instead of just USD.

If the USD makes a coin then Bitcoin is very likely to drop to second place in Coinmarketcap.

Metals which are a lot rarer than gold cost a lot more

People love gold because of its looks, its shine and heavy. On the other hand, Bitcoin is purely utilitarian in this respect, though some perverts may still distinguish it from other cryptocoins for some of its quirks and peculiarities. But the same can be equally said in regard to any other coin out there. Further, there is no innate trust in Bitcoin, so if Bitcoin becomes toxic (e.g. due to chain split), people will lose this trust instantly and get rid of it as soon as possible. In other words, there is nothing sacred or holy about Bitcoin apart from its being the first cryptocurrency (but that would only make a difference for an epitaph)

Indeed, you are right! even others like to shift in other altcoin, still bitcoin cannot be ignore at all because it is always a part of altcoin.
if altcoin value increase and we had a chance to sell it, in the end bitcoin still be the last conversion to become a real cash or money. meaning both of them are profitable to one another.

You have a point that many investors are switching to altcoins because of its new features, ETH was an example of those altcoin mostly swtiched by the investors, after it's split, it made a huge comeback and now following bitcoin to it's price, the problem is, bitcoin is still the same as we know it, it needs to be improved, high fees and slow confirmation, that is the problem.

There seems to be some shift to other cryptocurrency platforms most especially Ethereum but I don't think this can really affect the value of Bitcoin. The point is that the cryptocurrency market is growing everyday...there seems to be something for everyone here. In fact, the shift to other platforms can even be good for the cryptocurrency in general as this is akin to the idea of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I think yes if its happen bitcoin will slowly crashed and become useless. But i Think that would not happen because I believe in power of bitcoin that alt coin cant do. Bitcoin is a mother of all the cryptocurrency so altcoin is just under it.

investors didn't switch to altcoin, they just buy them to have more bitcoin, they are waiting for the correct time to dump nothing more or less

maybe you are talking about the recent ETH spike in volume which surpassed bitcoin, i rememebr the same thign happened with doge in the past

but this does not mean that doge is better than bitcoin, altcoin exist because bitcoin exist, bitcoin is leading their traction now

Why choose between the two when you can have them both? Bitcoin is still number one coin in crypto even though some of there inverstors switched to altcoin it will not have that huge effect because bitcoin is really have a solid foundation, bitcoin's community is still growing more thus it is so hard to replace bitcoin with altcoin.

Anyway you can have both bitcoins and alts just do proper tradings and investing research and for sure you gonna earn profit.

Yeah =)), I like your describe about crypto market! It very easy to understand and interesting ;D
I think we can choose an altcoin for Long-term with 30-50% balance, and 50-70% for holding Bitcoin

If you use the Cryptocurrency for investment, then I would invest 40% in the altcoin and 60% in bitcoin. But to use for buying goods is now more convenient with the use of altcoins

Most of the time investors hold bitcoin and altcoins, same is with my prediction. I too will be using bitcoin and altcoins, so that depending on the growth happening with the respective currency can make a better earning through it. So that the dumps won't affect the user at any point unless he does some mistake in the trading.

lol i think it's almost impossible for altcoins to eliminate bitcoin in this industry. We all know that bitcoin now is well established to the point that there is a single person on each country on earth using bitcoin. So i think there is no enoughreason for altcoins eliminate bitcoin.

Probably the investor know that altcoin has pump and dump habbit, so they take the advantage when the price of altcoin is pumping. Bitcoin is still the best cryptocurrency.

Some people predict bitcoin will die, and the strongest candidate to defeat the dominance of bitcoin is ETH, moreover ETH is strongly supported by Russian government, in fact I am very sure bitcoin will be very good and will not be replaced by atlcoin, but look at the history and price chart of ETH, Could happen and ETH would undermine the bitcoin dominance

bitcoin or altcoin

yeah..tricky question since nov of 2014 I've been mining LTC to BTC mainly..it has worked well

BUT I took a chance last year and got 1 BTC (at around $450 usd price) and got the POS coin LISK..which at like 3.50 now

is worth 23K to me as we speak.

Gets a guy thinking.

I also got a baikal 300mh cube for giggles at $825 2 months ago .mines DASH ..which I also kept and not to BTC ...it has

made 940 usd and ROI'd

So it is a tricky view

I do have a pretty good bitcoin hoard...I can always switch above stuff to BTC if it gets dire with the alt coins

but thinking stuff I'm mining now with equip that ROI'd above what I got in the hoard ..I should probably spread it around some

but again.....have enough BTC that if it goes to 5k I can easily retire

thus can afford to be 'stupid' with alts if that is how it turns out

anyway my 2 satoshi's worth

I think 2017 is the best year for bitcoin and altcoin. Should we say that prices cryptocurrency climb, bitcoin hit $2900, byteball hit $700, eth $400 and almost, I will save and choose both but I will separe 35% for bitcoin and left for altcoin.

Most people including myself keep a combination of the two and I don't foresee a complete switch away from bitcoin, remember it is still the reserve currency used by exchanges with which to buy and sell altcoins. If anything the popularity of altcoins has increased the demand for bitcoin.

Bitcoin will always be first crypto coin created, with the most value. But think Altcoins such ETH will be taking over Bitcoin in the near future

It is the increase which matters the most. Those who invested their money in Bitcoin will be the unhappiest lot, with "just" 180% returns in a time span of 2.5 months. On the other hand, Ethereum gave 700% returns and Ripple almost 2,500% during the same period. Even ETH classic gave a ROI of around 800%.

But just remember. 180% in 2.5 months is not possible with equities or bullion. 

Don't worry bitcoin will not going to crash because soon enough they will go back to bitcoins and realize that they're going down no one knows if altcoins value may rose up maybe they're just trying to invest in for some time and looking if somethings going to happen but i think theyre just going to lose their money for altcoins which price is lower than bitcoins. I hope bitcoin will stay strong and hold as the most valuable cryptocurrency in this field

to me my first coice is bitcoin, and i most put my money in bitcoin for holding it for a long time. but when i realize that the price of bitcoin is a little stable then i also try to trade some good potential altcoin coin, and from there i also made some good prifit. but still my first choice is bitcoin.

Much better if we have both bitcoin and alts. Some say Eth will take over Bitcoin i guess it will take a long time. Well as long as you have them both doesn't matter who takes the 1st place.

ETH is supported by the Russian goverment?
Lols, that's too funny.

Any real newspaper saying that , no ethshills?

The central bank governer of Russia said it loud and clear in an interview on rt.com that she doesn't see a solution in crypto. Not that they have any plans about them.


One reason. Please tell us one damn reason why eth would be better than bitcoin.

there are times that investors are moving their investment from bitcoin to alt coin but I think it is obvious that the reason why they are doing it so is that they are taking an opportunity to make a profit from alt coins as there are many alts that has jumped to the higher value and later on switching back to bitcoin . it's like they are just taking a risk to different coins in order to make their funds grow .

Yes, owning a bitcoin is a good option, however, in order to make more profit, we should use more altcoins. Altcoins are like the means to satisfy all of us. And for me, bitcoin is always the foundation for all.

I don't think so,look at the price of bitcoin right now
We're just using alt coin to make profit from them into bitcoin
And bitcoin will grow even more in the future,so just stick to bitcoin now

If I will choose, I will choose them both. Because it's not about the high price. It's about making profit. You choose bitcoin why? Because only high price? What if trade altcoin so that you'll know how much profit you get even if the price of bitcoin didn't pump.

I will choose both while you making profit with trade on altcoin you also need Bitcoin for investment and pay something on the internet if you're lazy to convert to flat first. You can't use just altcoin because lack of members accepts this coin for payment.

I would rather choose the bitcoin than the altcoin becuase the security that it gives for my online transactions.Altcoin still needs more improvements to reach the bitcoins level.There still more broken features with the alcoin as I can see.And bitcoins value has already increased so much thats why I choose it over altcoin.

yes no doubt about that, 2017 from the very beginning the rice of bitcoin is increasing, in 2017 the price of bitcoin got more than 100% increase in still 6 months and we can expect that in next 6 months it will get 200% more increase, people are still very confident about the price of bitcoin and therefore they are still purchasing bitcoin.

Asking for a black or white answer: bitcoin or altcoin is too simplistic. Something I have noted is that cryptocurrencies are extending and changing the concept of what exactly currency is. Bitcoin may remain the dominant cross borders payment mechanism but there are other currencies that are being used for special use cases for instance as a more efficient and flexible proxy for proportional company ownership or ‘shares.’ Tokens to permit community access. Many other things too.
And though the stench of 'shit' coins still clings to the ALT coin moniker, that smell is lifting as the technology is applied in weird and wonderful ways to apply solutions to challenges that were not possible before.
So, bitcoin or altcoin....
I say BOTH.

In 2017 not more than 100% mate it increased 200%. 2016 Dec the price was near to $1000. And after that slowly it was settled at $1200. from here very fast the price was raised to $2500. Now it's fluctuating nearby $3000. Today morning just 2$ required to hit $3k, but suddenly it falls to $2800. So in next six months minimum $1000, it will increase it is sure.

for me it depend on the situations between bitcoin and altcoin itself because if bitcoin price dropped but altcoin rise up i think it's time to aiming altcoins but if the majority of altcoins price decrease but bitcoin rise up just like currently so went for bitcoin is pretty good but for long term situations and investment bitcoin still my main option

Currently I will stick to bitcoin, although many investors are trying to switch to altcoin.
Because I think the future of bitcoin gets better

Everybody says something about diversification. This is easy to do but the important thing is whether it works in a booming market. And the answer is yes. You can get a better growth with altcoins.

I think the best investment portfolio is the one which is most diversified and same goes in investing in cryptocurrency. You should invest in Bitcoin as well as various progressing altcoins like ethereum and monero which are promising. This will reduce risk and increase the chances of profits.

Bitcoin has a good future today, high price increases make us safer to invest. But, investing altcoin is also a good choice. We can take a few chances when the altcoin price increases, so we have the reserve so that it does not really stick to bitcoin. Because out there, altcoin market also has a pretty good reputation and we can use to get many benefits.

Bitcoin future is given to be better, but most of the users switch to invest in altcoin because that is the best for now to invest and to get more profit because profit in bitcoin now is very hard due to high increase of its value

I think that us right, from the dump that happen just this day, I think many investors are regretting that they did not sell, and I think that is the reason the dump happened, many investors dumped their stash and sold their bitcoins. That is the only reason I am seeing because that price is the ATH.

bitcoin is now becoming the main currency of the world. Japan has already turned bitcoin as legal currency and now other countries are also going to turn bitcoin as legal. but  therefore people will adopt bitcoin as their main currency, which is already accepted by the modern people. they mostly use internet for shopping and trading, and therefore they will be giving more preference to bitcoin to use it for online purposes.

What about real people?

It's a pity people only talk about investors. There are also people like me who use BTC to pay freelancers or buy hosting services, and domain names. Has anyone seen somebody being paid with an altcoin? Can you buy goods with altcoins?

I think they are just investing in some alt coin for some profit,
Not like they are really living bitcoin for their alt after all they would just exchange the alt coins that they bought back into bitcoin.

altcoin will be a good investment with high chance of gaining profit if it increase its value. but i will still go for bitcoint it will dominate this field for at least 10 to 20 years. if you want security to your investment go for bitcoin.

Well, this switch has gained impetus with the recent Bitcoin transaction time crisis. Personally, I don't see much of an advantage by switching to Altcoins. What does it achieve? The only thing that I can think of is faster transaction times. And that is a maybe. It really depends on the altcoin that one is switching to.

The Bitcoin market may crash if many of its members migrate to altcoins, but at the moment, I don't see any signs of crashing.

There are some alt coins that has a good future for having a serious project and service on the go like Ethereum. But bitcoin will still survive even though there are a lot of alt coins coming out but very few has the potential. Many traders also are just buying and using alt coins for profiting purpose that makes them to invest to different alts.

Yeah it would definitely crash but as more tech starts to adopt cryptocurrency theyre going to go with the currency with the most amount of following & functionality, as in even if there is a coin that trumps bitcoin in functionality companies would feel a lot safer to adopt an OG coin which has had a steady following for the past decade with proven usability. Not even trying to persuade against altcoin as I have a few ethers but thats my two cents on once cryptocurrency becomes a more household name

I think only the traders are switching to altcoin and they are switching only for short term while for long term they rely on bitcoin as bitcoin has strong base and the people who have businesses in crypto currencies also rely on bitcoin so I think bitcoin will never crash.

Many of them switching to alt coins because alt coin can give them more profit, the alt coin volatility is very high so the traders can make more money, but in the end all of them will back using bitcoin because bitcoin is more stable and got more implementation, if you ask people to invest for a long term, most of them will hold bitcoin, so don't worry about bitcoin, it is a tough coin and got a lot is supporters

Correct but most of the users of altcoin is looking for more income since value of altcoin was depending on the value of bitcoin and they will take advantage on that because for now its hard to make profit in bitcoin if you used in trading that is why some users decided to used altcoin for short term.

I have stayed loyal to Bitcoins ever since I entered the crypto-currency sector 5 years back. But with every passing day I wonder whether my decision is right or not. I don't have any reasons to complain. When I purchased my first Bitcoins, they were priced at around $10 per coin. Now the exchange rates are close to $2,700 per coin. And when I sold most of my holdings in 2015-16, the prices were around $230 per coin.

Dude, you are literally promoting a scam coin in your signature...

And to address your overall point of your (and most of everyone's) argument, is that yes Bitcoin has more security in terms of just brute hash power... but there are other cryptographic algorithms out there that have the capability of becoming more secure based on it's code alone.  I will give Bitcoin the benefit of doubt to have the overall best security due to how difficult each block is getting and overall hash power; but I can see a future where Bitcoin's code will eventually be outdated.

Example A: Cryptonote
Example B: Zk-Snarks

I'm not promoting any coin that uses those algorithms, but I just find them fascinating and am always willing to use better code for secure store of wealth. ... And I really don't think Bitcoin Core will feel the same way because they seem to be always scared of a fork.

ETC, ETH and XMR are long term coins and have invested good amount of money in it and also have made some good profits till date but when it comes to an genuine investment I think I will prefer to go with bitcoins.

is there any evidence that bitcoin investors are switching to altcoin? bitcoin still has more potential for an investment than altcoin a high prices, volume as well as users.

I think some altcoin will replace bitcoin in the future, this is a very young world, and alts have many new and novel implementations, it would be good to keep a percentage in bitcoin and invest in other alts

it's very easy for BTC to sustain itself even if there is in altcoins anymore, the other case is impossible IMO. as altcoin are basically and essentially based on the principle of BTC and can't continue without BTC's.
And regarding the point you made, I doubt bitcoin owners will switch over to Altcoins.

I do not think altcoin will replace bitcoin in the future. Although some altcoins have better features than bitcoin (such as transaction speed and low cost) but the fact is that bitcoin is still popular and is used by people, even now people who use bitcoin always increase. In addition bitcoin is still the benchmark other altcoin to set its value. Maybe in the future there is altcoin that can almost equal the bitcoin price, but not to replace because bitcoin is the main crypto.

I'm not an Ethereum shill by any means

But you (and anyone interested, for that matter) may want to visit kremlin.ru (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54677), Putin's official "twitter", and read for yourself. In short, Vitalik talked with Putin himself, and Putin seems to be overall positive about Ethereum being used in Russia. Other than that, Elvira's opinion doesn't mean a thing, she is not an independent player, and she does whatever she is told. She is a sort of technical governor. In fact, Greff has much more influence than her in the Russian government and on Putin personally, and he is a known cryptocurrency supporter