Is competition healthy for Bitcoin?

[nwbitcoin]

I do disagree with the idea in general that BTC is "US central" as in when anyone thinks of BTC they think its for Americans.  I'd be interested in any evidence to the contrary outside of "most people on bitcointalk.org" are Americans.

The evidence is stacking up in the media.
MTGox is moving to the US
Wall St is starting to fund Bitcoin ventures
Coinlab, Bitpay and even Butterfly Labs are all big name bitcoin companies with strong US connections.

I know that there is a bitcoin hedge fund being set up in Malta, and obviously Kim Dotcom in New Zeland, but everything else that is happening to bitcoins seems to be happening in the US

I'm not saying its a bad thing, I'm just saying that some people might find that enough of a reason to look elsewhere!

[tkbx]

I've been taking a look into litecoin ... any alt-coin of choice?

Not even going to read the post, competition is good for everything, no questions, no exceptions.

[repentance]

I do disagree with the idea in general that BTC is "US central" as in when anyone thinks of BTC they think its for Americans.  I'd be interested in any evidence to the contrary outside of "most people on bitcointalk.org" are Americans.

A lot of Bitcoin services seem to be focused primarily on the US market and there's definitely a significant amount of distrust towards American business outside of the US.  I'm not sure how that will relate to Bitcoin in particular, though, apart from people being worried about Bitcoin and Bitcoin services being more vulnerable if they are US-based/US-focused.  It's not likely the US government will be trying to gain advantages for Bitcoin via free trade agreements any time soon in the same way that it currently tries to bully other countries in respect of other industries.

That there are currently no crypto-currencies which are competitive with Bitcoin doesn't mean there won't be in the future or that having multiple, competing crypto-currencies isn't desirable.  Bitcoin isn't some sacred cow or holy grail.  It's an experiment and there are lessons to be learned from its evolution to date. 

[optimator]

laissez-faire.

...is French and literally means "let [them] do", but it broadly implies "let it be," "let them do as they will," or "leave it alone". - wikipedia.

Either competition will under deliver on what is promised and will fail, or will identify a market deficiency in the existing ethos and will thrive.

Bring on the competition, for even if it fails, it may succeed in strengthening the status quo.

How can a society progress if it is entrenched in orthodoxy? And how can orthodoxy be changed without newcomers?

Cheers!

[markm]

Somehow bitcoin's price has contrived to stay insanely low for a ridiculously long time, and even now somehow something keeps suppressing it, so it is a good thing growth has started to pick up in one or more of the many alternatives. Maybe if something contrives to squash litecoin's exchange rates like seems to be happening with bitcoin yet naother contender will take up the position of being the growth coin.

The more the merrier, maybe we will find out how many it is going to take to be just too many moles for the suppressors to whack.

-MarkM-

[MagicBit15]

I honestly think just due to this explosion, that it will be like bitcoin as gold litecoin as silver and then bronze... who knows devcoin? Namecoin? But I think that is going to be the main way it will / should work. I think the problem is with acceptance it needs to start getting accepted by more e-commerce vendors. That way it will have less of a bad name for black market activities. Problem is government will want you to start tracking and taxing it, WHICH is why I promote the freedom on the internet. We have been pretty good until this point, SOPA and PIPA and things of that nature is going to bring world war 3, not korea or anything else.

If I start an e-commerce site I would love to accept all 3, and have different rates just like any currency in any game or any other 3 tier system.

[markm]

It is looking like it might end up simplest to just let people pay via Ripple, so they can use any currency they like.

-MarkM-

[Notanon]

I can see Bitcoin working more for expensive purchases (i.e. LED TVs, fridges, computers, etc.) as time goes on and Litecoin working more for smaller purchases, like movie tickets and so forth, mainly due to the faster block generation timeframe. Given one of the recent threads where people are complaining about microtransactions inflating the block size, perhaps Litecoin and other alternate currencies would help Bitcoin in this way by diverting micropayments to them, leaving large transactions and trades more the domain of Bitcoin.

As for Ripple, would be interesting to see if they do adopt Litecoin as a form of payment as well (last time I checked, there didn't seem to be that option available).

[markm]

Anyone can make Litecoin useable inside Ripple just by issuing LTC IOUs.

Actual websites that let you turn those IOUs in for actual coins on the blockchain, and turn coins on the blockchain into those IOUs will have to wait for the Ripple server source code, or at least the ability to set a Ripple account up to require destination codes so the webpage will work, but that is just a convenience thing, until then you can still buy IOUs over the counter and sell then back for coins over the counter.

-MarkM-

[Notanon]

I see. It'll probably be a while before I use Ripple for anything (in the middle of dealing with some personal debts, so watching my spending atm), so will wait and see on that.

[amincd]

I don't believe that it is competition for Bitcoin, since it uses almost all of the same code, and the same security model and technology. Ripple is competition to Bitcoin since it is fundamentally different from it from a technological and functional standpoint.

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

[Bitcoinpro]

their is a reason why people dont play cpu based games anymore 

[mccorvic]

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

[bitcool]

The fact that we are debating this topic, and this forum has a alt-chain section show the tolerance and inclusiveness of this community.

In Nazi Germany and Communist China, people are not allowed to talk about competition, they have more important things to worry about, such as Mr. "BIG", taxes and death.

[markm]

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

The more MUDs there are, each with their own variety of MUD-gold or MUD-currency, the less second life lindens are worth?

This seems like crazy talk. Surely as more and more virtual currencies and game currencies are observed to be exchangeable with fiat currencies the more all virtual currencies and game currencies gain in credibility as potentially of value?

If even BBQcoins have value, as evidenced by someone paying 100+ litecoins for 40,000 BBQcoins, then heck, darn near any such thing could turn out to have value, and if even far-fetched ones have value surely the granddaddy of them all, bitcoin, must be supremely valuable?

-MarkM-

[JoelKatz]

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

It's all about supply and demand. A new world that uses a virtual currency also adds to the demand for goods that can be purchased with virtual currencies.

But I might be a bit of a contrarian because I think looking at the price of a virtual currency (in units like dollars per bitcoin) is useful only so long as it accurately measures adoption of the currency. If other factors push the price of the virtual currency up or down, we shouldn't care. Bitcoin's success will depend on how widely adopted it is. To the extent price measures that, then it's a measure of success. But to the extent it doesn't, it isn't.

In fact, to the extent a higher price means more speculation, that can be a bad thing. Speculative bubbles can burst which can cause sudden drops in price. Those drops increase the risk of using the currency as a means of exchange which drives adoption down.

We should care about adoption of Bitcoins as a means of exchange. That's what will determine Bitcoin's long-term success, or lack of it.

[markm]

That is part of what I am hoping to explore with the Galactic Milieu...

Basically if you look at totally differently scaled games one sees a vast range in scale of what a given number of dollars will buy; in clubs and swords era villages games you might only be able to buy some swords and clubs, whereas in galactic armada games you might be able to buy entire armadas.

I am interested in seeing what happens when galactic armadas fly around in galaxies in which some planets have clubs and swords villages on them... If it is learned how many millions of swords and clubs it takes to build a ship, of which thousands might form an armada, yet swords and clubs are worth a few bucks, imagine how expensive, in bucks, a galactic armada might be...

-MarkM-

[bitcool]

To those who still think bitcoin is only a blockchain, a product, or a currency, you need to wake up.

Bitcoin is bigger than that, it's a technology, a techno-social experiment, all alt-chains fall under this umbrella.

This discussion is part of the experiment too  

[mccorvic]

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

This is literally the worst analogy I've heard yet. Congrats.

[bitcool]

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

Totally agree. To most people, p2p-backed virtual currencies is concept they've never heard of. It's hard to wrap their minds around the fact  a currency can exist  without government's backing.

The more p2p virtual currencies there is, the more people will become aware of this concept.