Bitcoin Forum

Just giving you a heads up, 99% of the alt coins are a waste of time and do not fulfill the main concept of the digital currency concept.

Invest only in Bitcoin (BTC) , it has more support and interest than any other coins(projects).

Although you might still find other projects with great support (either in great developers or they are heavily invested by many), like

Litecoin (https://litecoin.org/) (which suffers from a few big holders that manipulate the price, but you might earn a bit of $ from it in the short range aka mt.gox announce to add it to their trading). and

Mastercoin  (http://www.mastercoin.org/)  /  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.0;topicseen (which has already been funded with 5000BTC (https://blockchain.info/address/1EXoDusjGwvnjZUyKkxZ4UHEf77z6A5S4P) to kick off with the development)


Don't make the same mistake I did wasting my time on other failing alt coins..  :-\


Hope this info helps you decide where to start.

Good Luck.

I can vouch for this; don't ever trust anyone pushing a coin that isn't Bitcoin (or possible Litecoin.)  The scheme is to create a coin just to short it and abandon it; this requires people to put their time and effort into adopting the altcoin and putting it on an exchange.  It's nothing more than a movement of wealth to the original adopters (sometimes involving a pre-mine) from whoever decided not to cash out.

What is the hold up with mt gox adding LTC? I thought it was supposed to happen in August?  They do not seem to be very vocal on the issue.

hopefully it will be that some of these altcoins would survive and not be just pump and dumps.

if only there were a major vendor(such as bitcoinstore) willing to accept altcoins as payment. i think one big vendor adopting a coin is the difference in it being a pump and dump and gaining support and traction as a digital currency.

i have heard a lot people earning good on trading alt coin

Too late, I sold all my Bitcoin and put them into Litecoin.

Lost some money so far on that investment but I'm planning to hold for a long time so no worries yet. 

litecoin can worth something atleast

I was always suspicious of Litecoins. I got the impression that people are hoarding them in hopes their value will jump like Bitcoin. Without active circulation I don't really see this happening for them.

i do agree with u guys but ist LTC an alt coin, and if i mine altcoins and i trade them, than i buy some LTC. How that could be wrong. IF some other altcoins have more proffitability than

Yeah, Litecoin has even less traction than Bitcoin, and Litecoin's the most popular altcoin by a long shot.  There are a number of believers on here and I do think it can have further usability someday but as it stands, I think we would do better trying to get just one crypto-currency as common place before worrying about another, and Bitcoin takes the cake when it comes to familiarity.

Only invest in BTC and LTC. You can make good money with both

master coin and pp coin doing good aswell

I find it's only useful to own the alt-coins if your trading on the active markets and follow the bigfish (you have to know who has those large stashs of ltc).  There's ton's of market manipulation but you can make some good money if your sharp. 

I would never consider an alt-coin as a long-term investment, Bitcoin is the best for that hands down.  There may be volatility in it's price but it will increase heavily over time.

I wouldn't invest in Litecoin either, a lot of other altcoins are far worse though.

Something to read:
http://themisescircle.org/blog/2013/08/22/the-problem-with-altcoins/

I would preffer if MtGox start sending people withdrawals in timely fashion. For now, MtGox is big no no for me.

Yeah, if MtGox can't get dollars out I don't think it would give that much of a boost to LTC.

Some alts are ok but you need to be careful

If You don't like it, don't use it.

I will collect LTC through faucets.

Agree. High risk, high reward. Personally I made a few BTC speculating on PPC and Feathercoin, but you can just as easily lose all of it.

I really don't mind mining alt coins. Investing money into it is one thing, but it doesn't really hurt much to mine a few alt coins. Some of the alt coin projects that are interesting are the ones that aren't simply clones and try new mechanics like Proof of Stake. Yes, many alt coins are merely pump and dump, but some are acting as proof of concepts to try and innovate crypto coin technology and I think those types are worth investing your hash rate into to see how well or poorly the new concept plays out.

This is complete garbage, there needs to be at least a couple of alternative coins in the world if there is a transition to digital currency. Bitcoin cannot handle the complete demand of the world, this is ridiculous. Businesses are already working towards getting other altcoins established in countries and using them as a currency. There are advantages for altcoins such as cryptogenic bullion which acts like a building society with fixed interest rates, bitcoin does not have this feature. There are many more coins with extremely important features that bitcoin completely neglects, if we go the way of bitcoin is the only one then the monetary supply will always be fixed like it is now 1% have the most 99% have the least. There needs to be alternative currencies to let bitcoin thrive, they both need each other. The price of bitcoin dips like any other currency it goes up and it goes down, while bitcoin goes down, my alt coins remain stable there needs to be competition in the market place. The point is do your research if your just investing randomly in alts you are going to get burned, if you actually sit down look at investments and work out what people need and want you will not get burned. I can't actually believe people are saying don't invest in alternative currencies, it's like saying don't invest in Yen when there is USD.

So what happens when they buy in at $190 and it dips to $150 like it will do now? The point is it's your investment no-one elses, don't listen to these people because they have no idea about the market it's your choice and yours alone. These sorts of threads are designed to trip newbies up, because others don't want mass adoption of others alts at lower prices, they want to raise the prices of their BTC and they know that other alts can dominate BTC entirely. So my advice is don't listen to anyone and make your OWN decisions.

Also you just vouched for a guy that did exactly what your against, he names mastercoin and litecoin, probably both of those he has significant investment in.

Preference:

Mine  -->  Altcoins
Invest USD  -->  Bitcoins

 ;D

Thums up!

It's always good for newbie to read a few opinion of others and decide on their own (like what I am doing now). If the newbie just follow blinding then its his problem...

Do NOT count on MtGox adding Litecoin, they believe there's an actual need for handling thousands of transactions per second with their imaginary Midas engine. They also cannot handle this basic functionality called money withdraw, so there is no hope on adding another coin to the system.

Investigate alts and go from there. Make up your own minds.

Agreed, most altcoins are pump-and-dump schemes, and by the time you find out about the coin, the dump has already happened and the coin will go nowhere.

DOn;t invest in alt coins (apart from BTC and LTC maybe), and don;t invest in bitcoin securities!

Ive only checked out bitcoins tbh, but thanks for the heads up.

There was period when I mined altcoins, converted to BTC and bought the stuff I liked with BTC.

But now it is not profitabe for my electrcity costs anymore, so I see altcoins as useless coin

Just curious, how much was your electricity charges per KWH?

Litecoin (which suffers from a few big holders that manipulate the price, but you might earn a bit of $ from it in the short range aka mt.gox announce to add it to their trading). and

I've learned to laugh at every annoucement MT.GOX makes.
People told me they would release the LTC trading by mid September >.>
So I bought some coins at 0.02 BTC, and waiting and waited.
Freaking btc-e trolls, lol, but I was lucky, I sold them at 0.018 BTC.

I only wish you newbies to check whatever you are about to invest..

Even if a coin seems really good and you really like the idea behind it you should check it from top to bottom.. (someone said CryptogenicBullion ? tried it too.. but then I found out - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=245086.msg3044315#msg3044315 )
just an example..

oh, and another thing, be careful on btc-e, its controlled by big holders and the prices are usually fixed by their bots, trade with extreme caution and don't be tempted to sell/buy when some price change is happening.
(Its really easy to see how the bots work there.. ever tried selling at the top of the orderlist? a bot will automatically outbid your order making you to change or consider(psychological affect) changing your order to sell lower (or buy higher when you are buying) those outbids will automatically appear the second you hit the button with an amount looking like this - 216.98147513)

How would one go about mining mastercoin?

sounds like do your due diligence

So. Let me get this straight. You want us to stay away for your competition? LMAO! Such "business" and "closed" like thinking.

I dont think its bad idea invest little money to some alt coins, if you can now buy like $0.1-$2 and that value is later like $1 or $10. I have buy LTC, PPC and little XPM and looking to buy few other interesting altcoins.

or charts


i don't see any reason for newbies to stay away from alt-coins altogether, but i'd recommend just doing it with a smaller fraction and put most (i.e. > 50%) into btc

I don't see more than one cryptocoin coexisting as an equilibrium state. Because they are all similar, the tiebreaker will always be a coin's stability, and thus, market cap. At the other extreme, I think physical money is sufficiently different that it may take a while to be displaced.

I agree one must be careful, but I also believe many of the alt-coins of today will be mainstream digital currencies of the future. The difficult bit is knowing which ones will prevail.  Many will come and go quickly, and some will be around for decades... or more.

@ninjatflex, Mastercoins aren't mined. See the Mastercoin whitepaper (https://sites.google.com/site/2ndbtcwpaper (https://sites.google.com/site/2ndbtcwpaper)).

It's too easy to call all altcoins crap. Yes, 99% are crap. But there will be development, and it's hard work to find the 1% of innovative altcoins that have a chance.

If you don't want to consume too much time, then only buy Bitcoins.

If you buy altcoins to get rich quick, you already have lost.

And give not too much on volatility. Your win or loss is only on the trade itself, not on the exchange rate.

Only buy alt-coin that has already stabilized, like Litecoin and primecoin. High chance that investor can make some money..

Agreed most alts will not give us much prospects in the long run but to say they are all doomed is just rubbish. Theres a lot of potential  for ltc and room for at least one more in the long term altcoin ecosystem. Mainly because BTC mining is all but dead for those who have anything less than Thash power, and the BTC price will probably end up being $500 once it becomes entirely mainstream: like amazon accepting it, or airlines for in flight purchases and 'Wall st' investors start sniffing around.... and once those serious 'Wall st' investors start publicly putting some backing into the cryptocoin world, they will want to make some serious returns- too late to do that with BTC so the non-BTC coins are where they will look.

Granted, once BTC gets mainstream there will prob be a lot of serious pressure on the other alt coins to go away (like BTC scrypt, god help it). So it wont just be a case of how many miners and forum 'likes' anymore, but some proper corp-political like lobbyists will start throwing weight around. But now that China is keeping an eye on LTC, it wont go away as easily as the others and this leaves the door open for more than 'just BTC' long term scenario.

Like 'real life' minerals and metals: gold (BTC)is everyones favourite, but theres plenty to be said for silver (LTC) and even iron (insert coin of choice).

citation?

Well I earned quite a bit trading Altcoins and riding the wave. Everybody can earn a bit if they know how a market works.

And hows that an advice for newbies?

Bitcoins are not for normal people anymore. You will only lose money unless you have hughe budget to get specialized  ASIC miner farms.  Or tons of money to do real trading  for profit.
THE sha approach killed bitcoins - at least script doesnt have specialized megahardware to abuse the mining.

So in short .. .bitcoin is controlled by large shareholders and peopel with lots of money - in a way it has failed as a digital currency.

If any scrypt coin gets large enough, there will be Asics for it. Will you call the coin dead once again and move to the next one?
Mining is as important for normal Bitcoin users as logistic companies that transport gold are for gold users.

There are a few fundamental issues I see with both sides of this argument. Those of you fanatically advocating Bitcoin seem to fail to realize that it is not a perfect implementation of a cryptocurrency - nor was it intended to be. Personally, I feel it was meant to be a trailblazer. Satoshi knew his system wasn't perfect. He just opened the door for further innovation.

While I may be relatively new to the cryptocurrency game and certainly don't have a load of capital to back myself up, I find that it's worth diversifying into a few alt coins. Take Primecoin, for example - the method by which it determines proof-of-work is a great demonstration of how mining can also be used for other things. Prime numbers are used as part of security measures for information systems, after all. Finding different primes that could be of possible use for this purpose seems like a solid idea to me, and I'm willing to place stock in it.

That's just my two cents as a newbie, at least. I hold some BTC, LTC, WDC, and XPM.

ehm.. no. ASIC miners are for SHA based currencies. most altcoisn are scrypt - and only cpu and gpu farms work for it - ASIC is worthless there.

Bitcoins main failure is the SHA - which favors expensive  and specialized hardware.

THIS topicx is not right, u are ditching altcoins

Alt coins can be used for trading as they tend to be more volatile and easier to mine, but do not hold for the long term.

you are wrong man, i earn a couple of BTCs trading and holding the alts

Not all altcoins are awful, just trade carefully and it will be profitable for some.

some = the exchanges, and holders of mcxfee

:D

Investing in some of the altcoins might have better gain then Bitcoin right now as the price has already gone up so much. Keep in mind the risk is higher also :)

I wouldn't put heavy amounts of money into any alt coin, but would put a couple bucks into Litecoin.

I would say invest your time and money in bitcoin and if you want to, play the tradin game with altcoins.

bitcoin investing is expensive.  Both mining or  making money off the exhange rates.

If you really wanna make profit. .you would need thousands of $ of free money for that.

Do your due diligence before you want to invest. Some altcoins have great potential for profits if you invest in the right thing at the right time.

they dont know what they are talking about

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/7961/mastercoin-a-second-generation-protocol-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain/

Yeah, I mostly thought the same but am seeing a large up tick in interest in Litecoin. There could just be something to it.

Surely MegaCoin and TAGcoin are good investments?

lulz

yes i agree, Like if you invest in CGB now

So you have to be good daytrader. If your not and hope some altcoin will have future use, it is big gamble and very likely you will end with nothing

Yes, pretty much spot on.

Alt coins have kept my GPU's relevant.  Mostly LTC.  I think their speed offers a better way to move money/coins.  It only take 20-30 minutes for my LTC to get around, but my BTC takes a solid hour or longer for 6 confirmations.  Other than speed though,  BTC has the obvious edge.

All you need is 1 confirmation to be reasonably sure, 2 confirmations almost sure thing. The 6 confirmations is just unnecessary too much. Only once I saw 10+ confirmations to be orphaned when the blockchain splits between 8.x and 7.x versions

Thanks for the advice in this thread,

I had started looking into various alt coins and it was getting a bit overwhelming so I think I'll divert my efforts into some more trustworthy idea.

Everyone that tell you to stay away from alt-coin is a lie... they are secretly buying them.....

don`t stay away from alt-coins! just be carefull! if everybody is going to stay away from alt-coins then we shall have only bitcoin and that`s it! for a decentralized monetary sistem it can`t be just 1 or 2 crypto currencys

I would suggest investing in some of the Altcoins since Bitcoin has already went up so much..

I would only bother with these two..

Bitcoin (SHA256) can only be mined profitably on custom ASIC hardware (the Elites choice, and centralizing fast!)

and

LiteCoin (Scrypt) can still be mined on PCs (still the peoples printing press, and likely most decentralized)

No offense, but the day that people started the ASICs arms race and killed GPUs for bitcoin mining, they fell from the top of their high horse. Yes, some alts are shitcoins, but you actually lost reason to complain when you pre-ordered your BFL or KnC.

Now, we agree that most alt-coins will not survive and people holding them for months, will become empty handed. However mining them and trading for BTC up to a week after being mined, is what was left for small/casual miners.

Further, people complain about wasting power with GPUs. Do you have an idea how much water, power, chemicals, capital, human work, etc... is wasted on making chips and bitcoin mining rigs that are not useful for anything else?

How about buying 40 litecoins right now for $150 ? Is there hope for its price to double in next year, what do you guys think

Agreed, most of other currencies will fail eventualy. Bitcoin is good enough. Most of people will stick with mainstream currency, most sellers will support bitcoin and will not implement something else. All media knows bitcoin as crypto currency and no other.

I actually don't see bitcoin fully usable by the public.. same for the alts of course.

Mastercoin's project actually looks very promising, and to think I sold 2/3 of my coins like an idiot..

Why? What's the difference?

Most of this advice is sound.  Although, if you are a gambler, its the most speculative investments that will give the highesr ROI if it does succeed.  But I do think that with bitcoin gaining so much popularity, it will overshadow all other coins.  Unless ofcourse another coin adds features sorely missing in Bitcoin.  But yea, unless you know w hat you are doing, dont p ut any significant money into these alt coins, unless you want to take a gamble at getting rich.  Dont spend your lunch money though :P

I love all kinds of coins  :)

I started looking into this much too late, so altcoins are really my only viable option for understanding just WTF is going on with transactions, mining, pools, so on and so forth without wasting a lot of time and effort.

The more I read up on it the more I'm interested in Bitcoins, but since I don't have any use for them right now I'm not about to run out and convert my cash into bits when the price is so high/volatile. It makes much more sense to me to burn up my graphics card over the weekend to make an altcoin than to do the same for a satoshi or two.

Just for reference...
This thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287145.0) started 2 months ago, when 1 mastercoin was worth 0.01BTC , look at the values now (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApGPLGUd5ZCzdHFxbnhHQjBDSDVKamY5UHlWdkNMNWc&usp=sharing#gid=0)

An exchange for the msc will be up soon enough..  :D

I bought 100$ worth of Litecoin just in case.  No biggie if it doesn't go nowhere. But on hand in-case it does.

bump for n00bs sake!

I am interested in Litecoins and Peercoins but the main player is definitely Bitcoin.

And this will have a knock on-effect. Once BTC price gets ridiculous - maybe it already has - people will just invest in the next biggest currency; Litecoin. Then when Litecoins get too pricey; on to the next and so on.

Nope, by your logic, smarter would be start with new and still worthless alternative coin.

Litecoin is already too much expensive + useless

Not really useless, you can purchase several things with them, for example BTC or USD.... That's something.  And the same infrastructure (software, wallet sites, cryptocurrency debit cards etc) that are being developed for Bitcoin should be easily adapted or expanded to other coins.  The only danger is that all cryptocurrency will die and I think I'll gamble that it will survive.

I my opinion litecoin is a good choice for noobies too.

Thanks for the heads up

yeah stay away from altcoin, sux hacker currency

I think it would be wise to invest a little in some of the other up-and-coming cryptos.

And Litecoin's aren't really expensive, nor are they useless. Like any currency or commodity they're only worth what people are willing to pay. They're currently hovering under the $10 mark, and anyone who invested a little in these a few months ago has made a tidy profit. Same thing will probably happen with others cryptos in the next few months. Who knows? It's exciting to see how the markets play out for cryptos.

If you want to mine on alts only for the profit, do it here ->  http://middlecoin.com/  or here -> https://www.multipool.us/  or what ever multi pool you want. It's easy and profitable.

I would preffer creating my own wortless altcoin instead of pumping my money to worthless altcoin

I don't agree at this topic.

I believe that all alt coins are a long time investment so spreading your changes over multiple altcoins seems like a good idea for me. Ofcourse a lot of the coins are crap and will die in time but you only need 1 goldmine. Just don't forget that bitcoin wasn't skyhigh in the begining.

In future there will be not hundreds worthless copies of Bitcoin, but many thousands worthless copies of Bitcoin. Hopefully you have enought money if your plan is put some money in every new altcoin. The number of new altcoins will never stop if there will be enought demmand for burning money there  ;)

Well, it's not really investment. It's called speculation.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for altcoins, 99% of all the interest around cryptocurrency is generated by a post-event hype of a successful get rich quick scheme that made millionaires of several early adopters (and it's quite clear that the Bitcoin train has left, you can't early adopt it anymore, the rocket fuel's gone).
Most altcoins come from the misguided hope of duplicating that success. Of course, the rate of success is unlikely to come even close to Bitcoin, but it will have a profound negative effect over time to the very idea of cryptocurrency as a whole. It's as if in the late years of the California gold rush, miners could just make up new minerals that are still abundant - and there would be people around to buy those at a premium.

However, given the inherent flaws of Bitcoin, I am sure that if cryptocurrency does go mainstream, it will not be Bitcoin, but some alt that has addressed those flaws. PeerCoin is an interesting step in the good direction, but its money supply scheme is still not inflationary enough to be useful as a currency, and in fact encourages hoarding to a ridiculous degree. Also, the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake operation sounds shaky at best.

Pshhh, nonsense. I made over 30% yesterday trading my favorite alt coin. I'm not going to say which one it is because I don't want people thinking I'm just bsing to promote it. There is plenty of opportunity to make money with them ,but you have to know what your doing. You can't just arbitrarily by them at whatever price they are going for and expect huge return. You have to analyse fundamentals, popularity, and the technical aspects of it first and base your entry/exit points on that.

namecoin and ppc are good for trading at least in my experience

namecoin's goal of distributed dns sounds good but i do not know any popular site who uses it or if it functions at all

No innovation, no value.

In my opinion is same like big companies ,there are those big one like apple and samsung ans small one like alview ,put at a point if people invest in the small ones ,they can get big like huawei did :D . At one point people will lose intrest in bitcoin and move to and other currency.

Cryptocurrencies are not stocks, you dont invest buying coins so the Cryptocurrencies can use more money for growing business, you buy the coin if you see some value in the coin so you can use it (spend, sell)

im kind of wondering if the thread was actually made t o stop people from mining altcoins - so they could actually mine more of them at lower difficulty.

There is nothing wrong with taking some risks with altcoins. Bitcoin was  a huge gamble and risk early on as well.

yet you're wasting your time here giving warnings lol

Successful investors focus on where they think the price is going, not on where it has been.  They do not hesitate to sell, whether at a loss or a profit, if they don't see an investment heading up.

Bitcoin is the money of the future.  Beware of the imitators.

I'm not sure I agree with the post. Bitcoin isn't really a currency. It's more of a commodity. It's also deflationary. So when demand stays the same price goes up. Other currencies will have the same problem, but since they might have a larger cap it will take longer to reach. As with anything do your own research. Consult several sources. 

i agree, as with anything do your research.  esp. with this your going in knowing your taking a chance.  sometimes you win sometimes you lose but to me its worth a shot atm. 

It is a currency. What makes it not a currency in your opinion?

I think the altcoins serve a purpose to make the bitcoin stronger overall through innovation.

Why not give new alt coins a chance? You never know.

You can even find lots of rubbish behind the "solid" coins like LTC, NMC etc

Greets

The problem is unless you've got some ridiculous ASIC miner, which 99.999% of people don't, BitCoin is just too difficult to mine anymore. I like the altcoins popping up, it gives people a chance to get in early on something that may (or may not) take off and make some real money or trade for BTC if said altcoin gains a bit of traction. Just look at Dogecoin!

It's value fluctuates way to much no stable currency acts that way. It seems more of an speculative investment, then a medium of exchange. Most people who buy/mine it are hoping the price goes up. They don't buy it so they can make purchases. I know several merchants do accept bitcoin but % of bitcoins used to buy stuff is tiny.

All these coins seem more like an imaginary stock market then actual currency. Value of an currency doesn't increase when there is a increased interest, the stocks do.

Altcoins can pay off. I got in very early on Dogecoin mining with modest hardware and recently pocketed $500 USD selling it on Reddit and eBay. So, in conclusion $500 in a couple weeks for doing basically nothing but providing GPU/CPU power ain't a bad deal.  ;D

I agree.

Just don't be a pig. Pigs get slaughtered.....

I understand OP's statement, and I would agree to warn new crypto-fans to invest heavily in new coins. The risks are just too high to bet serious money. On the other hand -- if you have the time and/or money to spend -- it's fun! I'm playing around with a bit of cash I can lose.. and it's fun to be part of budding crypto-communities.

Despite all the big ambitions, don't take alts too seriously. If one or more alts make it to the mainstream, just be sure you have a wallet full of those silly coins :-)

Sometimes it pays off, and other times you get almost nothing, I mean when you mine all starting coins first day only when the difficulty is low

what about NXT??

Yeah, and Doge seems to be the exception to the rule that most altcoins aren't worth bothering with. I have a feeling the value will plummet in maybe a couple months though once the novelty wears off... I'm hoping otherwise.

Agreed. Bitcoins and Litecoins are the ones who will make a difference.

Although I agree for the most part and there are a lot of pump and dump type coins, I would not abandon all coin just because they are an alt coin.  Look into them... There area few intriguing alts

Interesting...

it seems that all those coins can be an opportunity for a quick money in case you are smart

But it is a good start for newbie to mine altcoins and then exchange those for Bitcoins.. Bitcoins are not minable with common hardware any more.

It depends what are you looking/minig for :-*

No one can mine bitcoin unless they buy an asic. I don't understand this thread.

it'll probably be worth $10,000,000 in 10 years  :P

I just have to agree..:) Altcoins are now quite easy way to get Bitcoins.. :)

I think a few alt coins might have some staying power. What happens to the majority at the bottom that drop off the top 50 market cap list? Is 0 and over the end of them? Or could someone revive a coin that went belly up.

Not sure what you mean.

Currencies (Dollar, Euro, Yen) most certainly increase/decrease in value depending on interest and capital flows. Why would that be different with digital currencies?

Nothing wrong with mining a few altcoins if you missed the bitcoin boom. Mine/trade or not the altcoin market will eventually collapse under its own weight (too many coins to choose from, none of them really bring anything truly revolutionary to cryptocurrency.)  BTC and LTC are the only real coins I see standing the test of time so why not make money while there is still an opportunity?

You do realize that for most of people here, me included BTC are long ago become unreachable. If they have a couple of spare bucks they will buy a few alt coins, or mine them and hope they worth something some day. There is nothing else they can do. It's a sad reality, but it is a reality.

altcoins are great if you can see which will do well enough to pump and dump

I respectfully disagree. But I appreciate the calling out of scam coins nonetheless.

Instead...
Look for altcoins that serve a true purpose and in a different vein than the purpose of Bitcoin.
Always vet your coin by researching if there has been a premine.  www.cryptometer.org is a good start.
Don't put money into a coin to only make money. Do it for other beneficial reasons.

That's just silly.  If you have a couple of bucks, you can buy 3 mBTC and join us on the trip to the moon.  If Bitcoin eventually becomes the global currency, which I believe can happen, then the average person on Earth will own about 3 mBTC.  So invest $2 in the real future of money today, hold for the very long term, and your minuscule investment will have turned into the average person's wealth.  Or put $20 in today and be 10 times as rich as the average person.

Just because altcoins have lower prices does NOT mean they are better investments!

What about Anoncoin?

I believe this to be a coin for the future?

Limited supply, great support, great site etc, worth checking out.

@OP Alright we won't make the same mistake because we don't want wast our time also !

The same can be said for numerous other altcoins. Doesn't seem to be much different about Anoncoin.

Keep mining up litecoin and quark coin.

There are plenty of reputable altcoins.  You cannot just lambaste and then group all the altcoins into the same 'worthless' category.

Litecoin was an altcoin once.  (Still is)

Altcoins tend to fall and rise faster in value than bitcoin/litecoin, this can make them a more viable investment.

Many altcoins are indeed pump and dump, and it may be difficult for new users to differentiate between them. 
For miners, you will almost always make more mining altcoins and then trading them in for bitcoins or litecoins that you would mining litecoins directly.

he is right wast of time and money :)

Just litecoin ,

litecoin is a best coin after bitcoin ,

What makes Litecoin the best other than its current price?

Totally agree. I prefer LTC to BTC.

i invest only in Bitcoin  :D :D :D

@mishax1 and Mike Christ. I am a newbie.thanx for your concern and warniing. I already own a few thousand doge and devcoin b4 seeing yo mssg. However  In order for you message to REALLY impact my future decisions, I really need you guys to go step further and be much more specific,like, how many altcoins have actually sunk in what space of time? Where mite I come acroos that info (been googling and so far nada) which ones can you yourself actualy name? Each pothese questions being answered wuld mean much more to me and others like me. Instead of a general warnings which require us to simply have faith in your opinion. Being specific and giving ad much detail ad possible allows us to own the decision more  quickly and more permanently. Thanx again for your considerations.

i'd have to disagree, altcoins are the only way a noobie can gain any foothold into the cryptoworld! No noobie will have the mining equipment necessary to make anything off of mining bitcoins.
mine alts, trade up to bitcoins.

Note sure about that you're saying.  :)

The true value in this phenomenon is the cryptocurrency technology, not bitcoin. Bitcoin is no better than the other alt coins. People who say otherwise are trying to protect their bitcoin holdings, but the truth will come out. This is a monetary exchange system based on science and mathematics, not human folly and emotion, so why would a store of value that does exactly the same as another and is just as readily available cost 1000 x more?

I believe eventually there will be about 6-30 commonly used coins, all with slightly different attributes, but all with roughly the same price or market cap. If bitcoin had a patent or intellectual property or even some technology that cant be replicated then it would BE the market, but it doesn't, and the reason those instruments are in available to businesses is because they are vital to maintaining a position within a market.

Also, i think bitcoin shooting off to such a price is also making people look elsewhere. I think its amazing price will be its downfall.

http://bitcoinguide.webs.com/ i make bitcoins using faucets and i get them quite quick to be honest i dont bother with altcoins, i put tegether a list of all the grouped faucets to maximise payouts, check my website if u want its up to you guys, worth a view tho put time and effort into group these websites lol. safe

The line of reasoning in this subthread makes no sense at all. 1 Bitcoin and 1 Litecoin are arbitrary units. If they is expensive to buy, then you can buy more with them as well. If you think bitcoins are too expensive, then change the settings for your wallet to millibits or microbits. If you are hoarding coins, rather than usng them to buy things, it doesn't necessarily follow that a coin with lower price will increase in value more in the future. The network effect is what makes coins valuable, and it makes no difference what units you use to define them. After all, 1 kilolitecoin is much more expensive than 1 bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0

Are any of the following coins values in a long run?
quarkcoin
infinitecoin
devcoin

What do you guts thing??  ::)

there is one quick way to spot a scamcoin and it is to look at how the coins is distributed, many altcoins is distributed over a very short time, a examples is quark and infinitecoin

when a few people have over 90% of the coins it is cheap to pump up the marketcap and than fool people inte buying when the price has dropped.

Thanks for the info, interesting. I've been trading a bit on btc-e, made a some good trades, but a few bad ones too. Trying to playing the market is stressful!

Quark would be the more promising one and adolf has absolutely no clue what he is talking about.

ofcourse you say that when you are involved in the quarkscam. quarkcoin is an ideal coin for a 51% attack... cpu friendly and almost nothing to miners soon. it's already beginning to loose a lot of value and i guess it will reach it's intrinsic value this year, ZERO

besides being botnet friendly, quark is just another shitcoin.

Most of the noobs are thinking that it is too difficult to mine Bitcoins now. So they are turning to newer altcoins instead. In reality, some of these recent altcoins include spyware and trojans which can steal your Bitcoins. So better be safe now than be sorry later.

Litecoin is pretty good and has a good developer base. its the silver of the crypto-world and the second largest coin out there. its not a pre-mined scam coin like quark or others:

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e71-blockchain-tools-and-litecoin-devs/

https://litecointalk.org/

I have neutral views about Litecoin. It seems legit and was not premined. The basics are also solid. But the point is that it doesn't have a single advantage over the Bitcoin.

CoinedUp.com is now exchanging btc for RonPaulCoin.  Both seem sound.  Any reason not to trust this exchange or the coin?

Being all in Bitcoin to start out with is excellent advice.  Don't try to chase the pump coins like doge or sexcoin.

They are intentionally pump and dump coins to get founders their money quickly in the short-term and leaves many holding the bag.

See this is the opposite of what I've noticed. Yes, bitcoins and litecoins are sound investments because they're basically gold and silver, but most of these other altcoins can be traded for either of them, and my hashrate gains me a lot more net profit by mining these altcoins and trading them for bitcoin or litecoin immediately. So while the altcoins might be considered riskier, it's also a better investment to mine them outright and trade them for the more well-known coins. That's just my perspective, anyways.

This is 100% true.

cheap mastercoins https://www.masterxchange.com/market.php     you should hurry...

Only mining here and for the BTC or LTC it is really impossible.

Hi there!

You can try to warn of altcoins but it seems that is why many new people become attracted in any cryptocurrencies. Obviously some of them will waste their time and power for mining "nothing" (while some will make good deal, even very short-term before currency dies) but it could be lesson why main currencies are stable and more trustworth than short-living alternatives.

However I don't exclude that some (really really very few) altcoins could stay with us for years (and that's again why it is so attractive to "just try" new coins). It's just a business like many others with many pros and cons - the difference is that some things happen here faster.

I got into this late November starting with an Nvidia card (465 gtx - now doing 140 is kh's thanks to Cristians latest cudaminer - must send donation...) of all things....

First mined bitcoin but learned quickly that this wasn't going anywhere. Then started mining LTC which prompted me to 'upgrade' to an AMD card and press two other pc's into service, one with an AMD (7870) the other inheriting my old Nvidia. Running at +- 700kh/s now combined. This slowly got some results but still more on the glacial side of progress....
Now have completely switched to altcoins since about mid Dec in terms of mining which are then exchanged to btc / ltc. Doge, some multipool bits & pieces and now some '42 coin' for a couple of days to see how it goes. Got some 150 'Dents' since lunch today. Not much but..who knows.....

Slowly accumulating some more long term coins (mainly LTC) and 'careful ' daytrading' now sometimes brings me 3 or 4 times what I can mine in a day. Slowly starting to see an exponential curve to take hold as each successful swing earns more & more coins. Not doing it for the $ btw. Purely to increase my coinholding eg a short is fine if it increases my coins from when they were sold. Without alts I'll be dead in the water with my hashrate...

A lot is philosophical for me. I abhor central banks / international banking and have so for a long time. So I have to passionately support this - hah a peer to peer currency backed by trust by the community using it - see ya to the banking system once we can pay for day to day things. Best thing that has been invented since the .308 and the internet. And I can't wait to see the epic struggle to come when we get critical mass....So go mine altcoins and be merry methinks.

OP here..   check this out! - https://leancy.com (https://leancy.com/~mishax1)

This is all very confusing for me, too many options. But I have quite a few friends recommending NXT and NEM. What do you guys think about them?

I was told Memory coin was worth mining and investing in - isn't tht true?

mining probably...investing probably not...

I pretty much agree with OP, and believe 99% of altcoins are just for pumps and dumps.
You may get profit/loss with short-term trading though...

I invested in NEM. Let's see what happens.

But doge is very coin, such wow :<

I think it is too early to tell what purpose the altcoins will serve. But I find each of them equally fascinating. I hope they all make it the moon!

Been reading info for noobs, here and at other places.

Lots of people tell the newcomers to just invest in BTC by buying them.

However, I know people who mine for altcoins and succeed.

So it looks like it makes perfect sense to go for certain altcoins as long as you're careful and know what you're doing, don't you think?

Trading alt coin to BTC is new commodity, open a new market.
I just try invest in one alt coin, wait and see.. Invest in BTC big risk, Big profit.

Hear me now believe me later...

Bitcoin & Litecoin will be replaced.

The only question is what replaced them.

There will be a time to trade out your Bitcoins & Litecoins for something else.

Since when has the Beta ever got it perfect?

So what makes BTC and LTC better than anything else?  OP states they are both "better supported"....well, going off that, if another alt is "better supported" wouldnt it overtake BTC/LTC? 

Its like saying you should only buy gold or silver, but not diamonds, rubies, emeralds, or oil futures or apple stock.  they're currencies and will be worth whatever the market provides.

what about 42coin that is worth what 100x BTC?

The thing about the gold, silver, gems and stocks is that they are are relative to the dollar, in the same way that altcoins price directly correlate with Bitcoins price. Because altcoins are exchanged for Bitcoin rather than actual physical currency, the price of altcoins will always be dependent on Bitcoin to succeed.

Of course, the amount of a Bitcoin each altcoin is worth is dependent on other factors, such as popularity and acceptance. The reason 42coin is worthless to mine is that it has neither of those two - sure it's worth a lot, but its far more profitable to mine something such as Dogecoin.

Right, but the dollar used to be relative to gold; then that changed and the dollar now fluctuates based upon amount of fiat printed (simply put). So while BTC is the standard NOW, what happens when it falls out of favor or there is a coup of multiple alts?

I would agree that BTC may be better to mine, but not everyone of us are mining.   Some of us are speculating and trading, so there are some ALTs that show great promise, at least short term...as the popularity rises, so does price.  Buy low, sell high.

Thank you :) that's very useful. And may I ask, how can I make btc? Im new here

I do agree that there are a lot of altcoins that are a waste of time.  The only issue I have is how I can possible mine bitcoin when I am a GPU miner with a hashing speed of 2190kh/s.  When I looked at mining bitcoin with my rig by using pools such as middlecoin the amount of BTC I would get doesn't cover the electric cost.  I would be mining at a loss?  Is it still possible to profitably mine BTC using GPU?

if you are not prepared to be sherlock holmes on your investements stay away. But if you are capable of independant thinking, proper learning, analysing and research and are also prepared to stay cutting-edge information-wise you can seriously earn your ass off with those alts. (remember nxt made 3,5 MILLION PERCENT for the early investors - that makes it one of the best investements at that time in all of human history)  
First learning certainly will cost you some in the beginning. Altcoins are not for everybody - 90%-swings can be seen nearly every day in both directions and the scammers are everywhere.
But if you are of above average intelligence and are ready to invest a lot of time on learnig and researching - yes you can earn a lot.  


have you guys seen aurora? from less than a dollar to more than 25$ a coin in under 3 days. That was crazy. Things like that will happen again.
Sure someone will hold that bag with aurora when it crashes back to 1$ ... but that were the people not doing their research and thinking or it were people that gambled and lost.

op, it is not congruent to push mastercoin while you talk bad about other altcoins. But yeah, what ever ...

Amen brotha gustav

I was thinking that Litecoin and Dogecoin is good altcoin! And now after MtGox crash Bitcoin is more volatile and it's more difficult to mine

You became my hero of the hour! Great insight on MtGox man.  BTW... What coin do you suggest? hehehe

That was an AMAZING read. Please don't delete this Muhammed. I don't agree with 100% of the points in it, but it's intelligent, clear and raises some great questions.

Definitely deserves to be on page 1 of the Newbie forum (so that people like me can read it :P)

Thank you!

Ist.

I think 2-3 altcoins are fine. I recommend bitshares & NXT + respective Assets. You need time to do a proper research though!

I think what you really need to do is not to go in more than you can afford to lose - completely.

If any newbie is to decide on a alt coin, I suggest who actually needs or uses them.

eg: Just-dice - huge dice site that only uses alt clam coins, that would be your only reason to jump on alt coin.

Unless its a similar scenario, I wouldnt jump on any alt coin unless its being actually used in demand at a high volume.

I think that's where a surprising newcomer might appear from. There are certain apps and sites with millions of loyal users. If a coin was introduced to them it would instantly become a major player.

Most altcoins are completely junk I'll give you that.

There are however some altcoins that fill roles that bitcoin currently does not.

For example if you want a truly anonymous coin you'd need to have Monero.
If you think that decentralized assets will become a bit hit then either Counterparty, Etherum or Aetherum would be a few good choices.
If you think that SuperNET will succeed potentially having a small amount of bitcoindark would be a good investment.

Stay AWAY from Ripple centralized scamcoin and pretty much every other altcoin out there.


Bitcoin is 100% guaranteed to succeed in my opinion. After that I give Monero a good shot due to its anonymity. Whether or not a small amount of counterparty and bitcoindark is worth it to you depends on how much you want to gamble/speculate.

Don't gamble any of your coins. Don't believe any investment site. Keep your coins on your own secure trezor/cold wallet etc. Come back in 5 years and profit :D

indeed, but that counts for every investment. :)

It's impossible to "invest" in bitcoin only. Investment portfolio should be diversified, you know. One should access risks and mine different coins, bitcoin is good, but it is not everything.

I am not sure if this is the right advise.
Newbies can also experiment with mining and trading and learn the alternative points of crypto world.
Also do not want to advertise, but think that Stellar is great project and the price is really stable for months now. It can be a good way to invest. You can check it out.
BR
G

exactly. or dogecoin, reddcoin. cheap altcoins to play around with

I think it all depends how actively you want to be trading.
I bought many different coins in very small amounts a while back, and I found out I'm too lazy to check their price, and sell if the moment's right, or buy more, etc.

I'm just sticking with bitcoin, as I don't believe you can earn nearly as much with any of the others, and it's simply too much for my head :)

And what is your solution for people who NEED to spend their conin here and now to survive? Like me? I want to hold everything or at least 99% of it.
But I need to sell bitcoin every month just to pay my bills. In the future I would be crying out loud when it will turn out that I sold value of bitcoins worth 1 million USD?

You can get your bitcoin back in a minute if you use trezor/paper wallet as cold wallet ::)