I'm currently pondering a question: Does launching an altcoin on bitcointalk inherently guarantee its failure? I'm beginning to suspect that 99 times out of 100 (2500 launched thus far, remember) it does in fact spell the death knell of the coin. Especially if it was launched by a pseudonymous dev.
Welcome to the world of mining-exploration. At least one sober and professional analyst has pegged the chance of a particular exploration project becoming a mine at about 3 in 1000. You'd get much better odds of winning by betting on the worst nag ever to be let into the Kentucky Derby.
But hope and the fallacy of the undistributed middle add up to "beer goggles" that magically turn 3 in 1000 to 1 in 1.
The parallels are fascinating, really. Both altcoin and exploration companies are speculations with essentially zero present value. All of the perceived value comes from anticipations/speculations/hopes of great value in the future. So you see a commonality: very long odds, very emotional punters, "beer goggles" all over the place.
In fact the commonality's inducing me to propose a Law: "In any speculative market where the economic value of the assets are all rooted in anticipations of future intrinsic value, the real odds of an asset in that class developing real value is less than 100 to 1."