How about exchange rate charts? CSV Exports of the values?

Personally I think that the competition does not harm BTC itself. I believe that BTC has won in terms of predominance. If you ask me the new coins appearing every day spurn competition among the AltCoins and I do not think that, for example, LTC as "silver" is already carved in stone. I'm all for not taking yourself too seriously, but DOGE? Really?  

Of course I jumped the bandwagon of DOGE miners after the positive media coverage but still...


Exactly my point. As I said before if there is no added value then I am a little doubtful about what's going on right now. But as long as there are people willing to trade these newly-created coins there will be new coins

Well, if I wanted to be cynical I could say that there never is anything that is 100 per cent guaranteed to be safe, no matter if it is a digital currency exchange or the milkman.
But I see your point.

Still, if you have an exchange platform that is linked to an actual company registered in a non-dubious country you always have some means of "legal leverage". I would say that this is a major point. If the platform is legitimate, well-run and not too big (like Mt.Gox) the chance of solving problems directly are also higher, IMO.


Still safer than Paypal, I guess. 

And of course it is a smart idea to stick to the "basic guidelines": Alway Keeping your coins in your personal wallet and not online, do not put your life savings into BTC in just one exchange etc.

In general with all things around "handling money online" I would suggest to imagine that you're trying to register a normal "checking account".
You would not trust your salary to some dubious website, would you?

The following tips might be of use:

Green Indicators

• Important: Officially backed by a financial institute.
  
• Large website, media coverage.
• No known security leaks.
• Operator is a registered company.

Red Indicators

• No information about the operator.
• Operator registered in a place that is known to be home to a lot of bogus companies. (Cayman Islands?)
• Website functionality clearly broken sometimes.

If you're living within Europe I can definitely suggest bitcoin.de.

Although they've had problems (especially during the first big crash in 2013) in the beginning the exchange service is running smoothly now:
They're adhering to AML guidelines, have an official partner bank, offer fast support and have a pretty active community.
And it's available in English!

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and as a smalltime miner of AltCoins this worries me. I think that many of the newly-released currencies are basically just a ponzi scheme. I suspect that the creators usually hope to score some value and convert into BTC/Fiat as soon as possible since many coins do not provide any added value over BTC.

What many people also miss is the respective environment of a certain AltCoin. What about actual trading partners? Exchanges? Official Websites? Maybe even additional services like an official payment system?


That's mechanisms of the free market at work, I suppose.
Still, considering how much attention DOGE has received recently while at the same time it's basically just a meme currency that's not really reassuring...