@TPTB_need_war
I see you on a lot of threads here.
Whats your favorite altcoin and what altcoin(s) you are hodling? Or do you hate them all?
Indeed I hate when people are promoting technology and they don't even enumerate the tradeoffs or bad aspects.
Any one who can't state their weaknesses and still find a way to make their coin compelling based in fact rather than hyperbole is on my shit list. Especially given none of the altcoins (except perhaps DOGE but I am not sure about that) have any adoption (other than speculators) at all.
DOGE is I guess an example of a coin that is humble/honest about its technological significance and overachieves and understates. But I am also a bit ignorant of all the details of DOGE's history and current state.
So for now, the only coin I support is Bitcoin mainly because it has adoption and creates the market for crypto as well as having Satoshi's invention for decentralized consensus (but also acknowledge the scaling is broken and it is being centralized). Also Bitcoin doesn't have on chain privacy.
I also support the research on Zcash and it has the potential to be a coin I support because the technology is a potential game changer but not sure yet, depending on how the details play out. And especially if they remain very honest and open about the pitfalls in their technology (and it also depends too what they do with the funding and distribution strategy but I can support the open source research regardless).
I give an honorable mention to Cryptonote coins for attempting to solve the privacy issue. Also a fair mining launch (to some extent). I have no qualms about them getting some ROI in the markets. But I no longer support the technology (see link above for my reasons). I understand many of those guys put a lot of money and effort into that. I never did like the way their community behaved (snobbish, overbearing, etc).. They've seemed to have stopped that now, so hopefully there is peace. Perhaps they could say the same about me being overbearing or in too many threads. C'est la vie. Bottom line is I think I've lost any reason to support the research and development in Cryptonote or RingCT (unless something changes my understanding of the issues, which is highly doubtful at this point).
I support the creative attempt of Iota to solve the scaling and centralization issues. I argue in my Decentralized thread that they failed technologically, but I have no qualms about them getting some ROI in the markets. I mean we need to fund research otherwise without experiments then no progress will be made. For example, Iota's design influenced my thinking/design on how to potentially improve Satoshi's PoW design. That seems to be how progress is made by taking inspiration from each other and of course starting with Satoshi.
I was actually more positive on Bitshares until via private communications some others convinced me the likelihood that there is no adoption and many gimicks to mine the speculators. I took another look to see what had changed or been accomplished since 2013 when I stopped following it closely. And Bitshares is still off in bizarro hyperbole fantasy land in my opinion. I don't understand those guys at all. They certainly think they are up to something important, but none of it makes sense to me. Nobody is going to want to move all their trades onto one system. I don't see any compelling use cases of BitUSD (removing volatility doesn't make crypto attractive to the masses, and the speculators want volatility). Etc.. I just think Dan conceptualizes everything backwards from how I would. And I think I have a more correct understanding of economics, marketing, and what can work and what can't.
I am particularly disappointed with Ethereum. $millions down the hole and they didn't solve the fundamental issue for a scripting block chain. I support research but not wasting $millions with no major research achievements. At least with Zcash, they come hat in hand with blockbuster accomplishments in research already completed. For example, imagine I actually wanted to program (invest my effort) apps built on top of Ethereum, but I would not have the confidence to do so, because they haven't solved the fundamental technical issue. How can I get excited about what I can't use. I get excited about Android programming, because I can use it. I get excited about Node.js because I can use it in real projects.
About Nxt, I can't comment, because I have a conflict of interest.
For the 100s of other coins, that is far too much for me to study.
I provided some thoughts about Ripple and Stellar the prior day (just go to page 34 or so of my Decentralization thread).