I think he meant that, if the big miners stop mining with their crazy huge rigs, the difficulty would go down allowing people with lesser hardware to mine more Bitcoin.

That's at least the case with Litecoin.

Honestly the only way I ever see Altcoins completely dying is if there was some fundamental flaw with Bitcoin, causing it to fail catastrophically, thus bringing down all the alts with it. Otherwise there will always be people trying to find alternatives (and make a quick buck), so there will always be some place for alts. Maybe a smaller place, but a place none the less.

I see bad signs everywhere. I don't like the fact that the price is dropping either. I'm just not convinced that something like this could ever "die." At least not without Bitcoin dying as well.

That's a good point though. I don't really know where I would draw the line, since it's such a subjective thing and I try to be as objective as possible, and even if I were to define it in such a "firm" manner, I don't think it would matter. Altcoins would most likely die without us even noticing, like a frog in a boiling pot of water, it doesn't even know it's dying. And sure, the same could be said for me, maybe I'm just trying to save a dead/dying community. But that's neither here nor there.

Well the answer the that question is quite simple. A dead Altcoin scene, as you put it, would be if NO ONE used Altcoins. If everyone were to up and abandon Altcoins in one day, then yes, they would be dead.

Realistically? I suppose very few people using them would also leave them dead.

An altcoin that is dead is an Altcoin with no Network hashrate. Since no one is mining it, it doesn't exist. See how that works. It happened to my shitcoin "Nucoin" (yes I admit, it was shit, I was new in the scene and I posted Local IPs as seed nodes. I was a moron)

But sure. I see where you're coming from, we do define success as market value here. I will concede that that is true. Altcoins can "die" in the sense that they have no value, but people will still use them to experiment and share ideas, so in that sense they won't "die" so much as fade into the distance, to a low rumble in the roar of Bitcoin-mania.

But I'm sure you'll tell me that I'm wrong and that we're all idiots, so yeah, fun times. 

I agree with you. Altcoins aren't about making money (or at least they shouldn't be.) I suppose "dead" is the wrong term in this sense. The price is going down, does that mean they are dead? Probably not. If Bitcoin lost all it's market value over night I'm sure people would still use it.

The fact that the price of Alts is going down is irrelevant to the discussion of altcoins being dead, my comment about them serving a functional purpose was to highlight the fact that they probably never will "die" in the sense that people will always make them and people will always use them. Because they're just as important as bitcoin. The prices are irrelevant, the money is irrelevant.

Now if you wanted to discuss the idea that Alts will never be worth anything I would love to talk about that, because that's a good topic to debate about. But whether they "die" or not isn't one, because they will exist whether they have value or not. Probably not as many, and not nearly as many clones as we have now, but the fact remains that there are indeed some talented programmers who want to improve upon Bitcoins fundamentals, and the only way they can do that is through Alts. So, no, I don't think altcoins are "dead" so to speak, I do think that they are losing value and are probably not sound investment at the moment, but that is irrelevant.

P.S. I know that OP was talking about the recent price drops in alts, but the question was whether Altcoins were dead or not.

Nah brah, I don't have a portfolio, I just like the idea of Altcoins.

See the thing is, right now, Altcoins are a completely saturated market. Everyone and their grandmother has an altcoin, which is fine, Altcoins are cool, if you want one then all the power to you, I'll even make it for you. The problem with a saturated market, however, is there is too much supply cause by too little demand. When the market slows down, demand goes up. Same thing happened with video games.

I'm just saying that Altcoins do serve a functional purpose, basically like a proof of concept for Bitcoin. I agree that Bitcoin will most likely remain the top dog in terms of coins, which makes sense, it was first to market and provided a major technological and economic break through. That doesn't mean other people can't join in on the fun. If it fails, it fails, some people lose money, sure. But it's the same with any investment, there will ALWAYS be failures.

And I never said I won the argument. You could be right and Altcoins may be dead forever, never to return. But I will always like Altcoins, they interest me. Sorry if you can't understand that.

I know I'm not OP but I'm curious now. Let's say the reason was because of a security flaw (and only a few hundred BTC were stolen) and it was fixed soon after. Do you think it could ever recover?

Sure, this is true, for now. What will probably happen is people will leave altcoins for a while, it happens in a lot of markets (especially when saturation is this high) but they won't leave for good. Eventually people will come back to Alts for whatever reason. Probably the price of BTC getting too high.

Alts will never really be DEAD, so to speak, they do serve an adequate purpose (experimentation, introductions to the crypto world, etc.) And that will be enough to keep them alive. Whether they hold any monetary value, however, could definitely be argued.

Plus I would hold a few, and use them like they were meant to be used: as a currency.

Let's just say this:

If bitcoin ever did fall, not even to a dollar, just somewhere ~$100, I would buy as many as I could, and so would a lot of people. Never underestimate the power of speculators.

Altcoins are only dead for as long as the BTC price is rising, when it starts to fall again (after speculators sell their coins) people will start moving back to Alts for a while. It's just the natural progression of things.

That's cool. Although you won't get very far with just 40 cents. It's a good way to advertise the exchange though. Like you said, free money.

Also, make sure you have a good backup fund as well, in a cold wallet, stored in a safe/safety deposit box/etc. Just anywhere safe really. You need to be able to "insure" your customers in case you lose their coins.

It's going to be hard, trust me. BTC (and all other cryptos for that matter) are incredibly volatile in terms of market price. Although, I'm not clear on what you are trying to do. Are you trading Bitcoin for other coins and then trying to sell them back at a higher price? Or are you waiting for the price to go up, sell, and then buy again when the price goes down? Either way, as long as you don't risk too much money, as in, invest more than you can afford to lose, then you should be fine.

I doubt you'll be able to get to a full Bitcoin however, though I was you luck. 

Bump.

Bump

Please send me a PM and we may discuss options.

I do think its weird that a coin would have copyright claims.