What is the purpose of altcoins and why there is so many of them?

[box0214]

think of altcoins as a childs sandbox to test out experimental features and mess things up so you don't do it on BTC. altcoins is were innovation happens along with a bunch of bagholders trying to pump a coin.

[StanLarimer]

Most of the leading "altcoins" are not really even trying to be "coins" per se.

They are blockchain-based businesses exploring an exciting new blue ocean for entrepreneurs.

How many businesses do you see on the NASDAQ?

Are any of them claiming that they are the only business that needs to exist?

May a thousand innovative business models bloom!

[benthach]

I mean we have bitcoin. Why there is some many alt coins in this business and what is the purpose of this?

purpose for alt coins = get rich quick scam

the reason is easy to do and easy to get away with no scratch from anything

[zivone]

In my opinion, other coins are created hoping to match bitcoin.

[Luqman]

It just some dirty trick to gets some money from newbies I see.. They made a coin then end up with being a scammer..

[Luqman]

I mean we have bitcoin. Why there is some many alt coins in this business and what is the purpose of this?

purpose for alt coins = get rich quick scam

the reason is easy to do and easy to get away with no scratch from anything

Agreed, it is the easy way to getting much money from other people.. As you can see how many Dev that end up with being a scammer..

[bettercoinpool]

"experiment with the different technological and economic factors" ?

horse before the wagon ?

long ago it was apparent a clone would not suffice *anymore (to get some adoption from us)
there for a gimmick was needed.. first it became "services" value added tacked on 3rd party stuff.
from there it blossomed with various other gimmicks.
Specialized coins took off.. Like Country Coins or Anon coins or Marijuana Coins
The the save the whales coins came along.

The real genuine experiments that have come out are rare.
Prime coin XPM for example or maybe Quark were sincere attempts at things.
Coins like HYP or CENT and most others are simply masked scammy faggotry.
The dev's are well aware what a high stake coin will end up like down the road for example.

And actions speak louder than words.

A lot of these experiments can be applied to existing coins or simply run on TestNet
there is no requirement to put them on exchanges all the time, parting naive users of their Bitcoin.

ALL of them end the same way.. pumped and dumped and dead.
look around..

what Spoetnik said!

[x.madisco]

If you think about all the hype you hear from industry and the financial sector about blockchains, you can understand why there's a powerful need for altcoins.  Whether it's a truly separate blockchain, or one that's somehow linked to the bitcoin blockchain, there is so much room for crypto-currencies to flourish.  And they can and will exist.

Altcoins allow experimentation, but more importantly, they allow attempts to solve problems that bitcoin (the currency) can't (and shouldn't) address.

[Luqman]

If you think about all the hype you hear from industry and the financial sector about blockchains, you can understand why there's a powerful need for altcoins.  Whether it's a truly separate blockchain, or one that's somehow linked to the bitcoin blockchain, there is so much room for crypto-currencies to flourish.  And they can and will exist.

Altcoins allow experimentation, but more importantly, they allow attempts to solve problems that bitcoin (the currency) can't (and shouldn't) address.

Ah, that's kind good from an altcoin, honestly altcoins can do anything that bitcoin cant do.. For somehow, altcoins is a good part of cryto currency

[WaterSupply]

Hello

The vast majority of Altcoins are scams.

It is really the founders of the Altcoin that are making money and possibly the first round of investors. Many founders are really clever and practice a strategy where there is major marketing and pump and dump. Once they do make their profit they simply move on. So it is a high risk high reward thing for them to do. They are actually PONZI schemes in their basic structure, so it is best for people to only invest in coins that have multiple backers and where major investment is going in to the infrastructure.
 
Cheers

[HCLivess]

I sold EarthCoin yesterday with a 1000% gain from 2 years ago  
-The coin was dead for the whole time-

To answer the question: Getting bitcoin is more expensive than creating (and consequently getting) an altcoin
Economics of supply and demand
Since these are self-propelling game theory incentivized mechanisms, some of them will exist longer than any of us

Tech is usually not a scam, but the hype around them always is