Bitcoin Forum

So, it's a year from now, and bitcoins are becoming more popular, though still not completely mainstream.

Hello, my name is Amazingon, a hugely popular and successful online retailer. I will start a new p2p currency, called ACoin. ACoin is really just bitcoin, but with a different chain, much better client, encryption, etc. Plus, I will give discounts to my customers who pay in ACoin.

All of a sudden, everyone starts using ACoin. What happens to the bitcoin network then? People would leave it, you would not be able to buy things for bitcoins, and bitcoin value would go down..

If and when bitcoins start becoming more popular, which is what we all want, there is nothing stopping Amazingon from crushing it with their own brand of p2p currency. Thoughts?

 We just have to create good infrastructure and popularize bitcoins first... First come, first serve. Even now, nowbody think that namecoin is a real alternative to BTC, I wouldn't be interested in any new xxxxcoins for a while... As far as Apple will not zombonise people with thier iCoins or something (so, they really know how to manipulate people with easy-to-use brick-products)...

Right. But a large corporation coming in with hundreds of thousands of dollars can have a better infrastructure instantly. I bet Amazon / Google / others are watching bitcoin very closely. If it starts taking off, they can roll out their version of it.

 So, honestly, i definitely would buy, generate and do whatever is required to obtain some googlecoins :)..
 So, then, bitcoin might be reserve-currency or commodity for criminals and illegal market. Anyway, it will not disappear.

 But I guess that Google, Apple and Amazon people already have tons of bitcoins and there are no reason for them to create something else :)...

As soon as I understood the concept that was my very first thought. There's a lot of incentive for entities like American Express, a bank in Asia, eastern Europe, the treasury of a small country, a venture capitalist, to roll their own version of Bitcoin rather than support the existing Bitcoin system, because of the enormous potential profits from keeping a percentage of the founding Bitcoins plus transaction fees for making a market. Such entities could make their P2P currencies much more accessible and have more real-economy links so the currency is much more usable.

But Bitcoin users may stick with Bitcoins if it is perceived as more trustworthy by not being attached to a large corporation or government, and if Bitcoins are perceived as providing more privacy and anonymity.

Right now with the Mt. Gox fiascoes and its offer to open its books to the DEA and its inviting the FBI into investigate its users for the security breach that brought down its market, it is not obvious that Bitcoins would have an advantage relative to the P2P currency sponsored by Amazon.com or other large entity.

I'd think they'd have to mine or create the coins first.  I think some miners would be interested in a new currency if it were viable.  It would be easier to make coins with a new system than with bitcoin which is getting harder and harder to do.

With this whole thing, it is Bitcoin or bust at this point.  Too many people and too much money involved.

Even if Wal Mart came up with a Bitcoin like thing with their own stamps of security, the only reason it would succeed is because hackers and just geeks alike would enjoy the general public using a dumb'ed down unsecured version of something that was free and better.   Nothing better to a geek than being right about something.    I think I took this too far.

As long as the community supports Bitcoin by using it, it will not go anywhere. If it gets established, (and it's well on its way) then any new currency will have an uphill battle to dethrone Bitcoin. The only thing that could kill Bitcoin is something new coming along that offers a sufficiently more attractive set of features than the current system.

Same principal when MySpace was overthrown by Facebook. You don't see very many serious attempts to overthrow Facebook now because they are the defacto social network space.

Haha great question :)
I think it'll be a kind of evolution. If there'll be lots of different chains, then "they" will just compete against each other (the resources behind them), and again early adopters will make profit. (whom will likely to be a huge subset of the early adopters of bitcoin cause they're the people following the whole fenomena closely). Have a lot more thought about this, but atm I'm too lazy to type it out :)

I think that Bitcoin has a huge head-start that will allow it to crush any future alternative chains.

Let's take your example of Amazon or Google starting over and using "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to create "better infrastructure instantly." No matter how much money Amazon or Google pour into their new chain, as long as they control over half the network their currency will be untrusted by anybody. It isn't a matter of how much money they have, it's a matter of how they can get people to start using their currency and trust that the clients Amazon/Google/etc provides aren't wired to cheat the system.

I think that this alone will keep Bitcoin safe from commercial competitors. A viable alternative chain must not be controlled by anybody for anybody to use it, and not only is it difficult for the commercial entity to give up control, why would they want to? Once the chain isn't their anymore, why not just use Bitcoins?

It's worth understanding the economy of Second Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life). Linden Dollars, like Bitcoins are convertable to and from other currencies. The things for which Linden Dollars are used are somewhat banal, but that's also true of Bitcoins. "Mining" of Bitcoins is a lot like "camping" in Second Life. While the two systems are not truly comparable, it's worth looking at how it's worked out in SL land.

Second Life has had financial disasters. The most famous was Ginko Financial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginko_Financial), which was a Ponzi scheme disguised as a bank in Second Life. SL has thefts and frauds, too. But the currency cranks along. It's manipulated by Linden Labs, though; they add new Linden Dollars to the economy to keep the US$ exchange rate relatively constant.

That's important. Volatility is a huge problem with Bitcoin. Until the exchange rate stabilizes, with, say, under 1% variation per day, nothing of real value can be priced in Bitcoins. If the volatility gets down below 1% per day, pricing in Bitcoins on a daily basis becomes feasible.  If volatility gets below 1% per month, it's usable as a currency. Until then, it's a speculative commodity.

Do you want a game with an economy? Go check EVE Online, and then your second life and his "ponzi schemes" will pale  ;D But, selling EVE money for real money is not allowed