Bitcoin Forum

What is the point of other coins if their price is based on bitcoin prices?

I just got my 30 gh miner and it was making $36 usd a day, and now it is down to 22 usd per day

what is the point in posting in the newbies section and not the alt coin section?

self moderation

I am assuming people are thinking the alternative coins will take off. Mine them now while you can get them much more frequently than Bitcoins. Then as the price goes up, sell them for profit.

Take a gander at www.coinchoose.com (http://www.coinchoose.com). It gives a profitability vs. Bitcoin.  Right now, Zetacoin is 150% Bitcoin's profitability.  The number, however, is somewhat arbitrary because altcoins are unstable until they establish a steady following.

Which other coins have prices based on bitcoin prices? And what does that have to do with your revenue dropping from $36 a day to $22 a day?

there is no point in altcoins.

Is the correct answer - what is the point of Bitcoin if their price is based on USD?

altcoins have no purpose, end of discussion.

Alt-coins have a purpose, they spread the hashing power over 50+ coins instead of one or two. Could you imagine bitcoin difficulty without alt-coins? Every single miner would be mining bitcoin.

If you're a die-hard bitcoin miner, you should welcome alt-coins because it gets other miners off of your network.

If you have a low hashrate, they're good for you too because they give you a chance to potentially earn a profit by strategizing (gambling) on which coin to mine and hoping profitability fluctuations will go your way.

That may not be their intended purpose, but that's what they're useful for.

Nothing's value is based in BTC unless you base it in BTC.

RIGHT ZETACOIN USED TO BE PRICED THAT HIGH BUT HOW MUCH DOES IT COST NOW?

LOL THE AMOUNT YOU'RE SUPPOSE TO MAKE GETS CUT IN HALF LIKE EVERY 30 MINUTES

I totally disagree with you.

So what if the difficulty was that much higher?  If everyone was participating in just BTC, the market cap (and BTC price) would be a lot higher.  Right now the alt coins are just fragmenting the crypto currency market.  Every new person "thinks" they have an opportunity to make a buck by investing in these (mostly) worthless coins.  These coins bring no value or new innovations.  They are basically a ponzi scheme hoping to attract new victims.  After 3-4 months they all fall in value leaving someone with a deficit in their pocket.  A few altcoins "may" pan out as winners (like ltc, namecoin, ppc, etc) but not the 150 or so we have now.  Most of these are pure CRAP coins.


BTW,  thank you for your AWESOME program and contribution to the community.  You really do have a well written/designed program!!!

I'm not suggesting most aren't crap, that's what I meant by having a purpose but it not being their intended purpose. In many cases they were created because their developer thought they were innovative, and in many cases they were created to pre-mine and dump... and in both cases they're mostly crap. But if they were to all dissappear a lot of miners would go with them because they don't have hashing power for bitcoin mining. That's a lot of people losing interest in cryptocurrencies, because (let's be honest) mining is what keeps them interested in most cases... not the idea or benefits of cryptocurrencies. I'm not defending the ever growing list of alt-coins, just saying they can be useful no matter which side you're on.

And I say this assuming most non-miners never hear of alt-coins, aside from litecoin, so I don't think it fragments the market for non-miners. The average person, or even the average bitcoin user, either hasn't heard of namedaftermydogcoin or knows it's crap and doesn't care about it. Alt-coins are just a way of dividing all miners up into smaller groups where you can gamble on which group to join. Some win, some lose, but they're usually all miners and/or speculators feeding on each other. Outside of mining, nobody cares.

For what it's worth, I only mine btc or ltc. So the more hashing focused on other things, the better. ;)

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

The 'point' of a lot of altcoins is pump and dump. However there are a few innovative ideas out there.