Bitcoin Forum

Satoshi Nakamoto introduced unique values to finance by applying the technology of blockchains, and creating cryptocurrency.

To name a few:
Robustness: The perk of cryptocurrency preventing third parties or any central entity from interfering with peer to peer transactions. Part of that is supposed to cryptography, and also on PoW mining being the largest computing network.
Decentralization: As the technology is able to sustain itself based on the contribution of users, no centralized parties are required and it's harder to shut down this global network.
Neutrality: No one can truly block other parties from transacting crypto for any reason.
Openness: Anyone can participate in crypto, and more participation makes the network stronger.
Trustlessness: The public ledger allows for all transactions ever to be audited. The emission of coins is predetermined and in the interest of all users of the longest chain to keep as is. So no trust in banks of governments is needed also because of this factor.

Now that we've reached a point where there are numerous competing cryptocurrencies, we could use data that's publicly available such as the public ledger, network stats, consensus algorithms etc. to compare alternatives with quantitative points.

If we set bitcoin as the base to compare to, then some issues arise. Not all coins are equal in terms of BTC's variables anymore and can't just be compared side by side.

For example, there's now PoS. How would one compare PoS's robustness next to PoW? For instance, bitcoin's cost of being 50+1% attacked is possible to be calculated.

Then, how can 'robustness' in the same sense be calculated for tokens based on a cryptocurrency? How about coins that are merge mined. Can they be considered as secure as the coin they build on?

Also, how does the security of coins that have very few full nodes (like Ethereum, which calls their ~4TB full nodes "archive nodes") compare to BTC?

There's surely more such issues that one could name. Could you find any notable ones?

It'd be hard to try to rank this sort of thing too.

Neutrality takes some points from openness for example because if you need to pay a higher fee to transact then you lose an edge on the openness as the chain will grow due to this.

I think decred was also listed as one of the greatest coins for security requiring several hundred billions afaik to overcome it, but if someone tries to dump a PoS coin then it might take a lot less... PoS security relies greatly on its market cap and we saw how btc had it's halved by a few million (afaik) quite recently.

Coindesk has the thing that you describe: https://www.coindesk.com/data

It takes various qualities like network size, market benchmark, developers, assigns those values as 100% for Bitcoin and compares altcoins with it. Their methodology is described here: https://www.coindesk.com/data/glossary

I personally think that these rankings can't be very objective, and I would never use them for trading or other serious decisions. Still, it can be fun too look at them if you are bored.

Exactly!
In regards to neutrality, I think it is technically correct, though anyone who takes advantage of the network neutrality or permissionless/trustless feature by consistently and deliberately breaking network rules could
be suspended, avoided by many due to bad reputation or even banned. I think the suspension could be lifted(automatically/manually) once the user gains adequate positive reputation or something. Such reputation system has to be fool-proof though for safety reasons.


In regards to Trustlessness...
One of my favorite definition of trustless (trust-is-less or trust-minimized):

A truely decentralized system is basically built to handle or solve trust issue between transacting/trading users in safe manner without preventing them to trade based on their reputations (for example). In my opinion, trust could be further minimized (better automatically) if what is being traded is harmless or safe.

Blockchain in broader sense also comes with more benefit and I love one quality the most, "Immutable".

Even if you Google it you will see big articles stating immutability of the blockchain. The literal meaning states that something after its creation can not be modified.

Thus, if you want to change it you simply can't. Any transaction that is broadcasted on the blockchain sticks there permanently and no one can revert it by any means. That reminds me work art of SHA with its unimaginable output logic which can never be used for identifying what was in the input.

"The Concealed" property of blockchain.

The immutability of the blockchain is the reason why most of us call it the future technology, simply because it helps the masses to discover information publicly. But this immutable data can also be a disadvantage when you accidentally chained a false information ( in general ) some might be confused or mislead. Sometimes modification is necessary, can we have that as a special power in blockchain?

Maybe this is the reason why corrupt is against blockchain  ??? lol

Lol I don’t know why, but I just don’t bother myself about making comparison between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

I just feel like it’s never worth it, because to me they are all good in their own ways. Someone have asked a similar question in this forum before about whether altcoins are better Bitcoin or not. The thing is that Bitcoin came out first, that’s what we all got to know first, and I believe that around 90% of investors here today bought Bitcoin first before considering other coins.

Other cryptocurrencies saw what’s not okay in Bitcoin and they tried to perfect it with new technologies. It’s just like Litecoin, the purpose behind it, from what I know, is to create a cryptocurrency that is faster than Bitcoin in transaction and Ethereum was created for smart contracts. So they all look up to BTC in one way or the other.

comparison can take place between different cryptocurrencies even if their differences were vast. but we first have to clearly define the characteristics we are going to compare and then compare those. for example we can not compare PoW with PoS but we can compare the characteristics that are the result of these algorithms. for example the security, attack surfaces, damage caused by such attacks, cost of attacks, how they contribute to decentralization,...

it is worth reminding that many of the so called "top" altcoins are not immutable: ethereum, bcash, ripple,... have all modified their blockchain and reversed transactions in one way or another.

that's a terrible mentality. any other cryptocurrency coming after bitcoin can be just as good or even better than bitcoin. the fact that every single altcoin created so far has been poor projects doesn't mean bitcoin is good because it was first.

Replace "Neutrality" with "Censorship-resistance", which is the effect of "Decentralization", and in my opinion, its purpose.


POS, NOT robust. There's the Nothing at Stake Attack. You are incentivized for behaving badly, because it will cost nothing for signing every fork.

Yes, not everyone understands bitcoin! Just as not everyone investing in bitcoin succeeds. You need to know the benefits that bitcoin brings and the risks you need to know to avoid. There are many ways we can delve into the currency that is considered to have high value in the electronic money market such as through television, the internet, knowledgeable people ...

You have explained the positive aspects and great features of bitcoin but on the other hand there are some negatives that make some cryptocurrencies better than bitcoin in this aspect, there is for example a long transactions time and high fees, there are a lot of other cryptocurrencies that outperform bitcoin in speed and low fees, But of course this issue was solved with the Bitcoin Lightning Network that outperformed all other cryptocurrencies in speed and low fees. This means that we can overcome the rest of the problems if they exist.

There is nothing perfect system: Bitcoin has unique features that have made its value higher than all others, but these features a lot of flaws have emerged that need urgent solutions, or the digital currency will fail in a race to preserve its value.

We have the problem of scalability, which means that the dollar will fail to be its daily use for all people as transactions increase.
We have times of confirmation and high fees that make many prefer some of the fastest and least expensive alternatives.
We also still need continuous development to make the currency more efficient.

Continuous development is what will ensure whether the dollar has future value.

We can't compare features that can't be measured.There's no point of trying to compare such features.
There's no altcoin that can beat Bitcoin in terms of robustness,decentralization,security,neutrality and trustlessness.The PoS concept still can't beat PoW so there's no point of comparing different concepts.
I don't mind if developers succeed at creating some altcoin that would eventually become better than Bitcoin in all the mentioned features,but such altcoin still isn't created.

Comparison will only happen if you compare both two cryptocurrencies that are existing in the market. They have different values and benefits in the market as you try to compare them, for example, Bitcoin and ETH. We all know that bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency and its price is extremely high compared to other coins. While ETH is only the 2nd most used coin in the market although it is an altcoin that most of the people used for their alternative investments. In terms of security, scammers are more focused on bitcoin due to its high value in the market and it is really profitable for them. That's the reason why everytime you should invest in cryptocurrency, always improve your security because bitcoin is very valuable.

Not now but things can get rough in the future and shit happens you now. We cannot compare the other coins right now because we have seen that they cannot get popularity like BTC has. some of them can only slander Bitcoin and the thing is, none of them has succeeded from doing that. If they don't change their mindset, they won't get any chance to increase the price of their coins from its past All-time high. why they don't accept it? instead of slandering BTC, it's better for them to go on the flow to support Bitcoin along with promoting their own coins.

I completely agree with you it makes not much sense to try to slander bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most famous and known of coin in the crypto space. The only problem is not everyone understands bitcoin!

I think there's nothing wrong if other coin prices are compared to bitcoin valuss.
As long as no altcoins comparison attempt to slate bitcoin, then its not a problem.

After all, comparison is about positives and demerits, and other than that, anyone that do not rate bitcoin highly does so at his/her demerits

It is all about the direction you’re coming from. In terms of usage, which is what majority of the people would consider, a lot will be choosing Bitcoin because it is more popular than the other cryptocurrencies and is widely accepted. It will be really difficult for other cryptocurrencies to be able to beat Bitcoin in terms of that. If it’s possible, for how long is it going to be? It doesn’t seem to me like something that’s going to be happening anytime soon.

Although I do see the possibility of Libra putting up a big competition, but till then, let’s just wait and see. There are already some cryptocurrencies that are somehow competing against BTC in some specific features, but people are not interested in them. At the same time, bitcoin can have all the features with upcoming developments which could be a reason why people are not showing any interest on them.