How many altcoins can currently be bought with USD?

[High Plains Drifter]

  Just wondering why we have to buy BTC so that we can trade them for other altcoins.  Is there other altcoins that can by bought with USD or is BTC the only one?  Thanks! 

[hilariousandco]

There's a couple on some exchanges. You can buy Litecoin in dollars and a few others on Btc-e: https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_usd

[Vivisector999]

There are many exchanges where you can go USD > LTC.  But if you are on Cryptsy, you can trade USD > LTC, DOGE, FTC, DRK or BTC.  Which is at least a few options.

And a few coins are working at getting their own exchanges going.  WDC almost had it with the Sharmbeck foundation, which self combusted days before launch.  And word on the street is Maxcoin will be going this way soon as well.


It's not about BTC being the only coin that you can trade for cash.  It's that the trading volume is high enough to make it worth the time for someone or some company to make an exchange (and go through all the red tape) to do it.  Which is why it's nice to see bigger (altcoin) exchanges like Cryptsy following suite.  Occasionally (very rare) a coins developers go the extra mile and try to put something together like this for their own coin.  Or at least an auction house that takes their coin.  But like I said it is very rare for a coin developer to do much work on their coin.  And oddly even difficult to get them to even be bothered with posting on the forums after a few weeks after launch (Possibly after they sell the pre-mine as soon as their coin hits the first exchange)