A few years back, there was a thread titled Why Bitcoin can never be beaten by any other cryptocurrencies?  Does anyone know what happened to it?

Some of the posts included:
OP- It's always possible that another cryptocurrency could overtake bitcoin as #1, but there's only one altcoin that currently exists that could possibly do that and I really don't see it happening. Another cryptocurrency could be invented and possibly overtake bitcoin one day, but bitcoin is currently the most secure, most decentralized, most valuable, most adopted, and most fairly launched cryptocurrency that is currently in existence, and it also has the biggest infrastructure.
 
Satoshi created bitcoin to solve the problem of trust with governments and to be a store of value that can be sent/received anywhere/anytime without permission or trust of anyone else. Over 99% of altcoins were created to enrich their founders and over 99% of them have no future. None of them are as secure, as decentralized, or launched as fairly as bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is full of scammers/grifters, ignorance, and people that actually believe the lies because they've been sucked into shady cults. People use altcoins for trading/gambling to increase their bitcoin stack or even their ethereum stack if they don't understand bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Gambling on altcoins can be very profitable during a bull run, but you can also lose bitcoin.
 
Satoshi took careful steps to make sure that the world would look back and observe that bitcoin was launched fairly:
 
 
    No premine (Satoshi didn’t grant himself any coins)
    Gave a 2 month heads up before launching the network (no sudden release and no mining before release)
    Coins had no value for 1.5 years so they circulated freely (this cannot even be replicated)
    Satoshi never cashed out (unlike every other founder in history and I bet that it never happens again)
 
Satoshi created bitcoin for the world and he never even cashed out. He did it for us and he didn't even profit from it. It's truly amazing and it's 100% impossible to ever have a cryptocurrency where the coins are circulating in the wild freely for 18 months before having any value. I also don't think that we'll ever see another cryptocurrency created where the founder never cashes out. It's also decentralized with the nodes in full control and there's no central leader, which is probably why he left us because it was best for bitcoin's success. No premine, no developer fund, no developer tax, never sold, no profit, no fame for his real identity, and he gave a two-month heads up about before he launched bitcoin. Everyone altcoiner has Satoshi to thank for all of the cryptocurrencies that even exist. Satoshi paved the way and i's impossible for anyone to ever replicate the exact way that he launched bitcoin because the genie is out of the bottle and cryptocurrency now exists.
 
Your thoughts?
 
Bitcoin is a brand
 
Bitcoin is currently giving class to any other cryptocurrency. However, it's starting to slowly show its weaker points such as not being able to scale well enough to sustain the entire userbase and tx count.
 
It's probably only a matter of time before someone else comes out with an even better currency that beats Bitcoin to the ground. I expect that to happen someday since tech is only going to advance and so will humanity (hopefully). At the time of writing this post, I feel like most alts are battlegrounds for Bitcoin. Alts are coming out with various updates and features, Bitcoin gives them time and if everything works right and the said updates/features have the capacity of improving Bitcoin's decentralization, scalability etc then BTC might take the features as well through future updates.
 
Alts are unstable. Some of them are prone to various kind of attacks. Others have supposed privacy that can easily be broken within a reasonable time. The alt that will conquer BTC is the one that will come out as an even more decentralized one that will be also newbie-friendly and will have enough features and updates to be considered a proper enemy of BTC. If we take a look at the top 5 alts, we can already see that even the closest enemies of BTC cannot even compare to it. They're all having the issues BTC already has/had, they're mostly more centralized than Bitcoin is.. I'm also still waiting for a proper warrior to come out and battle BTC's abilities.
 
When bitcoin was invented by Mr. Nakamoto back in 2009, did he expect that bitcoin will see that much popularity that it is enjoying today. Did Mr. Laszlo think that his pizza purchase would someday be valued at few hundred millions? I guess no!
 
So I personally think we should not assume that bitcoin will forever remain as a king of the crypto world. It will definitely remain as a pioneer cryptocurrency of course.
 
It may happen that some other cryptocurrency will take over bitcoin in the long run. Sadly bitcoin is mostly being used as an investment rather than a currency and for a good reason! It is very much possible for people to adopt a faster and cheaper alternative to transact money! You never know!
 
Tech isn't the only facet, though.  There's so much that can't be easily replicated.  It's almost like finding life on other planets.  The conditions have to be just right.   
 
Even if someone did come up with a technology that proved to be faster and more secure without sacrificing decentralisation, it's likely they wouldn't be as altruistic as satoshi was.  Transparent and fair distributions are an exceedingly rare thing.  Will the developers lay the foundations out of sheer belief in the goals of the project without financial recompense?  If not, how will they be paid?  How do you prevent a big company or a rich individual from buying up the vast majority of the early coin emissions?  The earlier point raised in the thread about Bitcoin having no value when it was first launched is an important consideration.  Every "next big thing" is now hyped and marketed for rampant speculation.  Crypto is big business now.  There's no going back to "flying under the radar" for several years like Bitcoin did.  Bitcoin spent long enough being adopted by people who understood and believed in its underlying principles that money and corruption can't undermine it.  Other coins have allowed a moral rot to set in and began making questionable changes in direction.
 
Also, if you released a genuinely superior technology open-source, people would naturally be making forks of it all over the place to try and cash in.  Without an established, dominant currency, it effectively splinters everyone into competing collectives, dividing the potential network effects each group can achieve.  On top of that, it will suffer the usual conflicts of ideology, where people can't agree on consensus rules, so split off for that reason.  I suspect those factors make it almost impossible for something better to come along.
 
I think it's still early to think about how altruistic Satoshi was. At the end of the day, his supposed coins are still unspent and you never know what his plan was/is about them. At any point in the future, he might end up selling at least a part of those.
 
I agree though, it's unlikely that someone will come up with the next big thing and not want to be paid for it. On the other hand though, there are lots of very intelligent people doing it just as a donation to everyone. If I was to create somethting like this, I would already know it's unlikely people would like hearing I want to be paid for a supposedly free and decentralized economy.
 
Therefore, I believe the next big thing will be exactly this: a free currency without premine, better than Bitcoin without sacrificing the decentralization. It will come, it's all about time. Personal opinion..
 
The points listed by the OP are very important. But the first and foremost point is regarding technology. Bitcoin is the first ever cryptocurrency. All the other cryptocurrencies that have come after Bitcoin (irrespective of the language or algorithm being used) are basically the same as far as the basics are concerned. And that is the main reason why Bitcoin can never be replaced by any of the other cryptocurrencies.
 
i said these two because we keep talking about decentralization and security but there are a lot of people who don't care about either of them and are only here to make money. if it were anything else 90% of the altcoins would have died already!
 
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You presented interesting points about Satoshi's conduct regards bitcoin. These are indeed good reasons why an investor should trust bitcoin more than any other crypto currency.
 
I remembered days ago on the internet there was a statement saying that the end of Satoshi identity's mistery would mean a fall in bitcoin's price. By those news we can see how the identity of the creator behind the currency can affect the market negatively, while anonymity affects it positively or doesn't affect at all. Bitcoin is seen truly as a decentralized currency, while another cryptos aren't, probably because everyone knows the identity behind the currencies, meaning the developer has personal interests Satoshi didn't.
 
The quote below should represent the answers to all question in the OP. But the main obstacle felt by most new decentralized asset maker was user trust. Currency failure have occurred tens to hundred of time before. But 1 decade now, not a single altcoin has been able to overtake this position from bitcoin, but there is still a possibility in the future.
 
 
Quote from: https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-if-someone-creates-a-better-digital-currency
What if someone creates a better digital currency?
That can happen. For now, Bitcoin remains by far the most popular decentralized virtual currency, but there can be no guarantee that it will retain that position. There is already a set of alternative currencies inspired by Bitcoin. It is however probably correct to assume that significant improvements would be required for a new currency to overtake Bitcoin in terms of established market, even though this remains unpredictable. Bitcoin could also conceivably adopt improvements of a competing currency so long as it doesn't change fundamental parts of the protocol.
 
So, why do we still doubt bitcoin after everything seem useful for everyone to get freedom to manage their money?
 
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Another reason why Bitcoin can't be beaten by another de facto cryptocurrency is that the crypto asset universe is ever expanding, and now Bitcoin investors can diversify into DeFi tokens such as UniSwap, which are essentially stocks and completely different from Bitcoin.
 
A crypto savvy investor will be diversifying into Uniswap or SushiSwap before something like Litecoin.
 
DeFi takes the heat out of the race to find a new Bitcoin.
 
People only have so much disposable income so are unlikely to spend it all on Bitcoin plus Bitcoin alternatives.
 
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AFAIK it's not a race or what came first, all crypto coins compliment each other to push crypto to higher heights and make adoption easy.
 
Tbh bitcoin has quite a number of flaws compared to what others can do and if it was based on what has what and does not have bitcoin wouldn't even make top 100. But because every crypto has a role to play in its niche crypto is bound for greatness.
 
We will have to see how bitcoin evolves from now on, as we know right now its biggest use case is as a store of value which means there is not a lot of need to move it too frequently, this has helped to reduce the impact of the huge number of people that adopted bitcoin during the previous years, but we are reaching a breaking point, if bitcoin is to develop into a world currency then we need the lightning network to gain massive usage during the next years.


Without an established, dominant currency, it effectively splinters everyone into competing collectives, dividing the potential network effects each group can achieve.
DoMAD https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325584.msg56623341#msg56623341

No, overall I have been a winner and realize that losses are part of the process. When playing a game like blackjack, there may be a temptation to blame the guy at 3rd base for a bad play that costs you, but in the long run those bad plays should only hurt that player's bankroll and not your own.

When gambling/investing in publically traded companies, it's disconcerting to receive notices of class action lawsuits which make you aware of improper behavior that caused losses.

Stay Away!!!

While I was able to make some trades and move coins to my personal wallet originally, they have not given me access to my account despite having two factor authentication set up and access to my registered email. No response from customer service or on their telegram.

See also https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325961.0

Sure sounds like the OP is describing loans backed by crypto assets as a way to be able to spend crypto profits without having to sell and be subject to capital gains...that's exactly what Blockfi and many other platforms let you do.

Forbes and others have described this https://www.forbes.com/sites/shehanchandrasekera/2021/03/17/how-are-crypto-loans-taxed/

CO2bit definitely feels like a scam to me- https://ecoaction.io/project/co2bit/

OP is correct that inflation tends to make it easier to pay off debts (assuming the inflation rate is above the interest rate). To the extent that BTC "wealth" encourages people to spend more, this does have some upward price pressure. As others have said and the latest US infrastructure bill proposes, taxing crypto gains generates revenue for the government which can be used to pay off debt (or more likely, just enable more government spending)

I used to be concerned about (government) financial debts, but have come to realize that for each dollar a person, government or entity is in debt another person/entity is owed, so Net Zero in terms of assets/wealth. Yes, one of the parties may end up worse off or better off, but overall, there will be the same amount of net assets-liabilities regardless of if the debt is payed off or not.

Environmental Deficits are much more concerning. I.e. if your family/village/etc. is 100% reliant on your well for water and you consume water at 110% of the recharge rate from rain, etc. then your are running a 10% yearly deficit and will eventually run out of water.

I should note that debts/money creation/monetary policy can have effects on human behavior, but real wealth is created and destroyed by how efficiently and effectively we build and utilize things of value, like a home, while minimizing resource destruction.

I think bitcoin is great in that it has opened up the idea of a different monetary system, but I don't see bitcoin effectively incorporating environmental assets and deficits into its system. Perhaps a future currency will more effectively recognize that things like the Amazon rain forest maintain biodiversity and work as a carbon sink which helps make the planet more liveable for humans, thus making us more wealthy in the long run.  

 

Would a universally imposed carbon tax (on all Green House Gas generating activities) be good for Bitcoin?

The below video points out that energy generated by fossil fuels creates negative externalities that are not accounted for in the price.
Users of this energy (like bitcoin miners, Christmas lights, etc.)  unfairly profit from this at the expense of those who are not using that energy. This leaves bitcoin open to attacks of wasting energy and being bad for society.

Antanopolos also point out that miners will tend towards the cheapest form of electricity...if a carbon tax makes renewables the cheapest form of electricity for all bitcoin miners, then all miners would use renewables. He implies that miners might be more nimble at switching than others, which could give bitcoin an advantage in a true carbon priced economy.

In short, he is saying that if you can properly price all externalities, then you can let markets decide what is valuable and what is not. To me, this is a more objective and fair form of government regulation rather than the often times subjective, politically motivated and piecemeal regulations that we currently have. Would we be better off having a single debate about what the cost of GHG emissions are rather than having 1,000s of debates about the pros and cons of various GHG emitting activities?

Still got- User 'topcoin360' has not chosen to allow messages from newbies. You should post in their relevant thread to remind them to enable this setting.

That might make sense if each person (or corporation) was allowed to each vote once, but if 1 person has 10,000 asic mining rigs, don't they effectively get 10,000 votes? How is that any different than someone with more money getting more votes than someone with less money? And what if you own some bitcoin, but don't have an asic rig? Seems like you don't get any votes.

I too agree that bitcoin is like the Ford Model T- a game-cha nging breakthrough that was eventually improved upon. Bitcoin attracting more miners to use more energy as the price of BTC goes higher is obviously sub-optimal.

However, there are already a number of coins that are much more energy efficient than bitcoin. While I applaud your efforts, I believe your idea to effectively burn/reduce the circulating supply of BTC will push up the value which only encourages more miners which increases the difficulty formula- more miners and upward difficulty adjustment both result in more energy use, not less. You'd be better off selling the btc and using the proceeds to support the price of your own coin (or buy carbon offsets, or campaign for a carbon tax or any number of other things).

I just signed the petition. In addition to possible market manipulation, I think it is hypocritical for a "green" company to hold bitcoin. This has hurt the Tesla image and lost them sales and market cap- https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-backing-bitcoin-is-a-carbon-tragedy-energy-use-is-huge-transaction.220105/
https://mattelston.com/2021/03/24/teslas-bitcoin-folies/

I have always thought people should do their own research and make some attempt to verify what the "experts" and "influencers" are saying before blindly following them.

Obviously Musk has been very successful financially, but that does not mean he is always right or that everyone always agrees with him. i.e.

During a recent Bloomberg TV interview, Caitlin Long, the CEO of Wyoming based digital asset bank Avanti, stated “There is really no difference in the ultimate energy use between proof of work and proof of stake. I had to laugh out loud when I saw Elon Musk’s tweet today.” https://ecoaction.io/laughing-at-musk-talking-out-of-your-a-award/
and
https://mattelston.com/2021/03/24/teslas-bitcoin-folies/

Isn't that what Bit Green (https://bitg.org/) basically did to start? Now they are trying to have more of a positive impact rather than simply reduce energy use (in part as they realize there are many low energy use alternatives to bitcoin including Cardano and Nano to name just a few). FWIW, Nano is in many ways the peer to peer cashless network described by Satoshi. Of course, the bitcoin community has been able to create a much larger market cap by brining in 3rd parties and repositioning btc as a store of value.


@Topcoin360 & @TangentC, I tried to dm you but got a message saying you hadn't enabled receiving from newbies.

@NeuroticFish...can you explain
During a recent Bloomberg TV interview, Caitlin Long, the CEO of Wyoming based digital asset bank Avanti, stated “There is really no difference in the ultimate energy use between proof of work and proof of stake. I had to laugh out loud when I saw Elon Musk’s tweet today."
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5341668.0
Do you agree or disagree?

If you purchased crypto at different prices, one strategy is to sell the coins with the least appreciation first.


Are you sure there are still loopholes? In his first Presidential campaign Trump tweeted:
 “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them,”
The Tax code was updated after he was elected, so the loopholes are closed now, right?  

In all seriousness, for off shore companies, you have to also be aware of the Controlled Foreign Corporation rules- https://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-061-007

US tax laws are so complex and far reaching, that you have to be able to spend a lot of time and money to legally avoid taxes.

This is correct for the US. I'll add that the amount of capital gains tax depends on your friend's income/tax bracket and could be 0 at the federal level if their income is low enough. If your income was lower than your friend's, it could make sense to sell yourself and give him the net after tax. A less appealing way to reduce taxes is to die- assuming your estate is less than the threshold (11.7 M in 2021 https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estate-tax), then you could leave your BTC to your friend and they would get a basis that is stepped up to the value on the day of your death meaning they could sell without having to pay taxes (unless it appreciated between the time you died and the time they sold). When Yankee owner George Steinbrenner died in 2010, there was no tax on his $1 B+ estate AND his family got a stepped up basis meaning that nobody ever had to pay tax on the increased value of the Yankees and his other investments (at the Federal level). Had he died in 2009 or 2011, there could have been a $400 M+ tax bill.

Each state has its own tax laws so there may or may not be tax to be paid there also.

Its good that Trump simplified the tax system, otherwise it might not be so easy to understand   Personally, I think we should do away with most income taxes and replace them with taxes on pollution and lies for profit.

I agree that it is hard to believe that he didn't know about the energy problem. Tesla's market cap is down something like $200 billion since they announced buying bitcoin, but maybe Musk is playing some reverse psychology game- https://mattelston.com/2021/02/10/elon-musk-a-reverse-psychology-genius/

People should definitely learn to think for themselves!

Musk has had success,  but that doesn't mean he knows everything. He should have avoided btc and kept his mouth shut as Tesla's market cap has fallen ~200 billion since announcing their purchase- https://mattelston.com/2021/03/24/teslas-bitcoin-folies/

Unfortunately, I think you are right- https://ecoaction.io/project/co2bit/

ETH is up over 2,100% in the past year. Put another way, a year ago, you could have bought 45 ETH with 1 BTC, now the rate is just over 13 so BTC is down ~70% when priced in ETH.

ETH also outperformed BTC after the 2016 halving, while BTC lost less (vs $US) than ETH during the 2018 Bear market. If you think history will repeat itself, the play would seem to be to hold ETH after BTC halving while exiting crypto when these rallies turn into routes.

2nd layer solutions, side chains, etc. might help with some of the scalability issues and can also allow users to spend their btc even if the merchant doesn't receive btc.

You left out the environmental criticisms of bitcoin mining. While other human activities pollute and some btc miners have used renewables, most miners still use fossil fuels much of the time and have no incentive to stop unless governments regulate or price goes down. Just like the Ford Model T is no longer the most efficient or commonly driven car on the road, its likely that another digital currency or asset could end up being better and more widely used than bitcoin. What would happen to BTC if Musk announced in the future that Tesla had sold 100% of their BTC and gone to Ethereum 2.0 or some other coin that Tesla believed was more environmentally friendly? What if Microsoft and Apple announced that they had avoided btc for sustainability reasons, but now held an environmentally friendly crypto?  ETH has outperformed BTC for the past 1 & 5 years...if btc was viewed as an inferior store of value and more harmful to the environment, don't you think people may change their mind as to which digital asset they should hold?