Bitcoin Forum

It's a horse race and BTC has the obvious lead but does it have the legs to finish the race? Win? Place? Show?

http://observer.com/2015/02/the-race-to-replace-bitcoin/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ta

Comments on some of the comments?




“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.” Gandhi

Shitcoins.

Maidsafe is the only worth crypto related project worth looking after that isn't Bitcoin, when the current bubble bursts it's an obvious buy.

Care to back that up with some non biased review(s)?

Why, and how could the Fork end up going weird?

Here's to hoping for the best on the new fork. Now how does one prepare for the worst?

As far as I can remember, there have been 3 or 4 Forks in the past, and perhaps for a short period of downtime, nothing of significance occured to cause disaster or ruin with Bitcoin users.

Most likely, users will have to download another revision of Bitcoin Core, not so different from the one that was just released a day or so ago, to download the new chain.

As far as alts go, there are only a couple worth mentioning (Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc), but hard to see the masses to utilize these coins, until Bitcoin actually does come to it's end and dies.

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kingcolex

You raised an interesting idea, that larger transactions would go on the blockchain as normal vs. smaller ones off-chain (or LTC, etc.).  

I see a lot of very small betting transactions when I look at blockchain transactions for example.  Sometimes they make up 20% + of transactions scrolling by...  These might "crowd" the seven transactions per second limit I have read about.

I can offer no knowledgeable advice other than hoping that the LARGER transactions have some kind of priority.  It may be that buying coffee (etc.) may not need confirmation(s).

Why don't you tell us which alt you invested in think will finish the race?

Obviously, nobody read the article. It is about Ripple and Stellar, which are not just alt coins.

I think they are interesting payment systems that are somewhat complementary to Bitcoin.

I'm not sure which one will win -- Ripple targets the banking industry and Stellar is aiming for developing countries.

And, which are also not decentralized, subtracting from the whole point of "decentralized currencies".

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kingcolex

OK, I will remember that (pay a higher fee to the miner) when I have an important transaction I want to go through more quickly.  I know it is easy to do just that from blockchain.info wallets, I will look into that re my Ledger and Trezor ones too.

Where's the "thumb-up" icon?

 :)

All those coins are obvious bitcoin wannabes and will be left in history amung 999 other altcoins that were around and are still coming in various shapes 10x a day.
The only differece is that ripple and 2-3 others have a lot of marketing and  funds to pump unrealistic prices.
I would avoid all of them, there is only one currency, and that is bitcoin, and if aditional features are truly needed, bitcoin will support them in future.

cheers

Ripple and stellar are not same category as Bitcoin and sure can not compete with. Bitcoin is fully decentralised currency and that is lot bigger step than transition from coins to paper money. In my opinion, only decentralised solution (most possibly Bitcoin) have chance to become mainstream.

A nice read indeed. But, neither Ripple nor Stellar is a decentralized cryptocurrency like bitcoin is. I can say it even after holding some Stellar.

Because Bitcoin is the original one. The critics on the fork thing are legit tho, we need some god damn consensus and get it fixed asap.

I appreciate the feedback folks. Food for thought.

Personally I've been investing time on gaining an understanding of just where this is all going. I do like the possibilities
of BTC holding the lead and the longer it does I believe it will become the people's choice.

Still things happen even when foreseen. 

If Ripple is more geared to the bankers and they accommodate it's uses for their own gain then it would seem to me
a majority of the masses will be naturally drawn to it simply because of the "trusted endorsement" from their banks. I
won't touch Ripple just out of principal.

Like rust, corruption never sleeps.


I do have an interest in Ethereum, too soon to tell if Vitalik Buterin's Nobel Nod has any winks involved behind the scenes.


Again, thanks for your thoughts.

Never invest in a crypto that isnt BTC for long term, unless you have real reasons too beyond speculation.

Bitcoin just hasn't started well; it is miles ahead of the rest.  :)

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Bitcoin also has "first mover advantage".  Which means that barring a BIG JUMP in the quality of all alts that BTC could very well wind up the winner.

There is also a large network of developers working on various facets of BTC.  It is hard to see that that would be true of any of the others.

More merchants take BTC as well.  I can only try to imagine buying gold for alts (perhaps I am wrong, maybe some of the ones taking BTC take some other ones too).

Bitcoin will certainly continue at the top for years to come. Fact is right now i just thought that none of the altcoin at the moment could come close to what bitcoin is or worthy enough to replace btc... having said that ripple is no exception. Though ripple looks promising, the idea about it being controlled by a central authority will mean it will function almost like the very same fiat system we have today.

Ripple might not meet your ideals, but it certainly functions differently than what we have today and it is better.

Maidsafe is really revolutionary. With corrupt governments trying to execute more and more control over its citizens, a new kind of internet which is truly anonymous and decentralized will be necessary.

Another interesting project is Storj/Storj Coins. Cloud computing becomes more important, and you must be crazy to give your data to privacy abusing companies like amazon, google, ms, apple, or dropbox

Though i love ripples but i really like the ideas with stellar
Though i don't think they can be successfully bloom untill btc gets a little stable