Bitcoin Forum

We all love to hate altcoins. But they are mostly just clones. What have altcoins taught us about where the price of Bitcoin is headed. Early holders creating artificial scarcity, price jumps due to limited supply, illiquid markets and exchanges painting the tape, slow price dumps with many bulltraps on the way down...

I just made a photocopy of a $5 bill, sold it for $1, bought it back for $6, attempted to sell it again for $10, then ripped it up and urinated on it.

What does this say for the future of the dollar?

Serious altcoins are here to bring the consumer choice. And consumers will ultimately decide which coins succeed and become widely adopted.

LOL. Moon?

I think sidechains will be the death of altcoins mostly. But my point was actually about Bitcoin. In a round about way...

the truth is:
many alts are advanced over bitcoin in many different ways

sidechains will not change that. Sidechains will just lead to a gigantic blockchain bloat and will seal the fate of bitcoin because they will create numerous problems and only little benefit. Sidechains are the last desperate try for bitcoin to stay relevant compared to alts.
Fact is: evolution keeps going on

one of bitcoins big problems is: it's open for spam and spam in the blockchain can cause serious trouble. Even satoshi said that.
Bitcoins big problem is vulnerability to spam and the problem with blockchain bloat. Both this major problems will be made worse with sidechains.

Sidechains will create a host of problems and provide only little benefit. In no way will they end alts - they are more likely to end bitcoin if they were implemented.

All they provide is another attack vector for malicious participants.
Increased complexity will increase the risk of fatal problems.
I'd expect for sidechains to take the life out of bitcoin sooner or later.

This will all end in tears?

possible.  I think so because i know also 99,9% of people miss the point.

More complexity is not better - less complexity is.
It's a money-token not a computergame. Security and sustainablity is priority #1 - if that's not the case and something else becomes #1 priority it can end in tears, yes.

We all have our shared delusions whether they're love, freedom, or security. Until Bitcoin came along, there was no way to guarantee your long term financial security. That's why people hold bitcoins long term. Delusions like bull traps exist because folks are cynical, insecure, and lonely. Maybe nobody will ever be free, but maybe someone will invent a drug for the loneliness and cynicism.

Look at Bitcoin's market cap compared to that of all the altcoins put together.
None of those altcoins are going to be close to Bitcoin any time soon.

I like your musings, bro. I would +1 and take this drug of yours. Or maybe I already have ???

this is true until it's not

This year will be all about sidechains. It's an altcoin pump and dump killer. I propose a boycott of all alts until then.

can't wait for sidechains to take the last bit of life out of BTC  ::)

Sidechains provide a clean, scam-free environment to experiment with crypto-features. Problem?

what leads you to believe it would be scam-free?
What's your definition of 'clean'?

It'll lead to a massive bloat in the chain and extreme spam - basically risking to rob bitcoin of all useablity for it's main job.

Not to mention people will find bugs and exploit them. The sidechains-thing is at risk of collapsing into itself if a fatal exploit was found.

The two-way peg. There will be a fixed or deterministic value pegging it to BTC

which doesn't make it clean or scam free...
quite the opposite: entirely new and unseen scams will become possible

Altcoins have seen every scam there is. My imagination doesn't stretch as far as yours maybe. Example?

more ipo-scams for example.
Actually a flood of them.

Massive spam in the chain - look at NXT-assetexchange to get an idea what's coming - and more.

plus: these coins will be no good as money-tokens and will be highly instabile in the markets -> more and even worse pump and dumps.

There's always a new scam to be invented - especially with new technology.

I did never fall for an alt-scam btw. Not one. Some can some can't ;)
People getting scammed in alts just have low standards imo. You don't put money on every offer - quite the opposite ...

people  getting scammed with nxt-assets and shitcoins now will also be scammed with sidechain-apps later. Nothing's going to change there.

You keep editing your message lol. I don't have all the answers, but the whitepaper suggests that any exploit will be contained in the sidechain. The parent chain will be unaffected

sure - besides the bloat of course.

All this doesn't rule out the possibillity for sidechains to collapse in on itself in case the two-way-peg is open to exploits which it likely will be.

In the end of the day sidechains provide no big benefit over an independant altcoin.

How does a blockchain collapse in on itself exactly? Is it like a polar vortex?

no, the two way peg fails, all the locked bitcoin get stolen - the sidechain stops to exist with no prior warning at the flip of a switch.

People having value parked on the sidechain will be left with nothing then...

So i'll  actually would want to see it work for up to a year before i would put my own money on these sidechains (if ever).

I would still invest in alts - sidechains or not

Sidechains is just a feature - wouldn't stop alts - maybe stops some of the shitcoins but not all of altcoin industry.

So the good stuff still will be independant coins and all the crap, scams and spam gets loaded onto bitcoinchain and will be secured with btc hashpower. Great innovation! Scams and shitcoin that do not even die when nobody mines them. The scammers will be really happy.

If the sidechain is of no interest to you then you stay on the parent chain. No big woop I should think. But for the rest of us it opens up some interesting possibilites

i predict: after couple of months (in case it works) 90% of sidechains will be scams - and the problem: they do not stop to exist if nobody is interested. The scams can be run literally forever whereas a shitcoin dies these days when nobody mines them. So all the scam will happen on these sidechains then is what i'd expect.

Sidechains just mean the end of shitcoins ... scams happen on the sidechains then ...

The sidechain tokens can be immune to pump and dump mechanics

i'd expect all bad actors from shitcoins would move to sidechains then.

Scams secured with bitcoin hashpower is the wet dream of every scammer

The blockchain will be spammed with no end only with the biggest crap humans could dream up...



how would they be? You need to get rid of the free market for that - so owning the tokens wouldn't even be diserable

pump and dump is a phenomena of the free market. It happens with bitcoin, it happens with litecoin, it happens with the DOW ... it's part of the free market. Price goes up and down. Pump and dump is a reality you have to live with. It happens in all markets on some scale.


so no, sidechains will not end scams, they will not end altcoins and they will also not end pump and dumps ... quite the opposite!

I am highly sceptical of the sidechain thing - esppecially because people were hyping it from minute 1 without asking any questions. I'll remain sceptical because lemmings are plenty.

This is all very interesting. I propose we take this to the Sidechains thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=831527.0

i have seen that. I think it all has been said in there already ....

only blind people fall for hype which was speaded by cryptomedia from the first second. I don't fall for hype at all... This whole crypto-technology is so new hyping like the blogs did is in no way justified.

I'm not entirely certain I like the idea either. But it IS interesting. They seem eager to adopt zerocash for example

it is certainly interesting but i think hype is unnecessary or even morally wrong. There is so many unknowns and things that can go wrong...

Zerocoin has his own array of problems... mainly trust-problems. That's another topic alltogether.

It IS interesting BUT fundamental changes to bitcoin should not be taken lightheartedly - especially with brand new stuff.

I'm the anti-hype. Trust me...

people saying 'trust me' is a red flag  :P

 ;)  :D   ;D

People saying red flag is a red flag. Who do you work for and what is your purpose here? :P

Does critical thinking make me suspicious?

 :D

It's no sheep - he must have an agenda!  :D

no, i have just seen enough in crypto to not fall for hype and promises. I want to see stuff actually work before i believe it does.

Only because stuff is praised by some blogs doesn't mean it's good.

I can appreciate that. I actually started this thread as a kind of rant against Bitcoin tbh

this is actually a good observation because that's what really happens.

well, at least we know our permabull-friends now and where they are coming from after this bearmarket ;)

Some lousy shills are indeed lousy

Pix or it didn't happen.  :P

hahahaha!!!

Can I purchase the ripped up urinated original???

Thats gotta be worth gold 20 years from now!

Especially the urinating part.  :P

Wrongest thing I ever said? This^

yes.

sidechains imply adding functionality. no one cares about functionality. they want more dollars and that's the only thing that's gonna count for the next few years.

here's a real prediction that came true by little old me - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1891741.msg18792838#msg18792838

Someone upstairs heard we like black swans, so they put a black swan in our black swan. :-\