Is competition healthy for Bitcoin?

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

So an alt. coin is simply taking the cryptocurrency pie and slicing it up into a smaller portion stealing thunder fom Bitcoin and it's value diluting its user base. Competing standards are always a bad thing. and in no way would a rival alt. coin and user base generate greater awareness of cryptocurrency and draw an even greater number towards both ultimately benefiting both.

[franky1]

bitcoin does not already own the world. so alt currencies are not taking a slice of the bitcoin pie and they are not diluting its userbase. bitcoin is a crumb of the 7billion population which already use multiple different currencies. saying bitcoin is the one and only currency is not really grasping the whole picture.

it's like the ancient egyptians saying they are the only thing of importance in the world and no other country will succeed and prosper. and anyone found not following egyptian rule will die. hmmm and look what happened to ancient egypt after its glory days. people moved away as their freedoms and choices were limited, leaving with their own principles and idea's for a better life and thus, new cultures were born.

the general thoughts of bitcoiners is with one hand they want freedom away from government control and they want freedom of trade, and choice which is great.
...but then saying bitcoin is the only other choice.. [facepalm]

treat each currency like their own country. some flourish, some die out, some go to war with each other, some form life long trading partners.

in short competition helps. competition is only bad if your on the losing side and you have no benefit/nothing of value to give to win back and succeed. in the end winners don't fight. they learn to respect each other and work together, sharing idea's and learning from mistakes.

[DoomDumas]

It's been proven that cooperation is always better than competition.
If ressources (hardware, poeples, etc) applied to LiteCoin were applied to Bitcoin instead, Bitcoin would be stronger !

[DoomDumas]

Competition is ALWAYS healthy

Scientific study proves otherwise..

Your call is the result of the capitalist minset that has been pushed to us for generations !

[DoomDumas]

Competition ends up killing almost everything, it is bad for any particular thing at all in the longest run, but competition is certainly good for people/humanity.

Wow how wrong is this.

Car Industry: Ford, Toyota, Honda, Kia...etc.

Drinks: Pepsi, Coke...

...


Right...competition kills almost EVERYTHING.

 

Those will all be gone and it will be because they were out-competed.

I don't know what insane position you think I hold if it requires that nothing currently exists.

All those things you mention replaced things you probably never heard of. B brand buggy whips and yummy Y brand fizzy pop probably.

Competition keeps things in order. If there is only 1 vendor or one currency then the people who control that good or currency will have ultimate power. No incentive to be competitive to get users to use it.

Absolutely. I don't mean that it's a bad thing that competition eventually kills everything. That means that the stuff that currently exists always tends toward awesome because of competition.

??  Stuff are made cheaper and cheaper, year after year.. I dont call it "Tends toward awesome"..

The broad organization of society today is based on multi-level human competition: nation-states compete against each other for economic/physical resources; corporate market entities compete for profit/market-share; and average workers compete for wage providing occupations and hence personal survival itself.

Under the surface of this competitive social ethic is a basic psychological disregard for the well- being of others and the habitat. The very nature of competition is about having advantage over others for personal gain and hence, needless to say, division & exploitation (of both human and environment) are fundamental attributes of the current social order. Virtually all so-called “corruptions” which we define as “crime” in the world today are based upon the very same mentality assumed to guide “progress” in the world through the competitive value.

[markm]

Altcoin *are* co-operation, or at least attempts at making something that can be co-operated alongside bitcoin, especially the merged-mined chains that co-operate in doing more with the same hashing-power.

Blockchain based currencies can be traded among much more conveniently than trading any of them with fiat, in fact at any point where you touch fiat you tend to run into all kinds of problems, so really it is the proliferation of fiats that the altcoins are competing against, fiat users already use something other than bitcoin, altcoins just give them something other than fiat to use if they persist in not using bitcoins.

Trading can be fun, the more altcoins there are the more interesting trading scenarios forex games can present without resorting to fiat and with the currencies they trade being usable across platforms just like bitcoins.

-MarkM-

[CurbsideProphet]

I'll take competition over a monopoly any day.  If a technology such as Bitcoin is as good as we all think it is, it will stand up to the competition just fine.  If it fails to something superior, that's the way it should be.

[Lethn]

Competing currencies would be the best thing that ever happened to money and world markets, what other way are we going to discover what the best method of exchange is? It's great that they made Bitcoin open source because even if Bitcoin does ever get taken down there will be a bunch of other more improved and updated currencies to use.

[Walter Rothbard]

I'll take competition over a monopoly any day.  If a technology such as Bitcoin is as good as we all think it is, it will stand up to the competition just fine.  If it fails to something superior, that's the way it should be.

Competition may not be good for bitcoin, but it is good for us (bitcoin users).

[Transisto]

I'll take competition over a monopoly any day.  If a technology such as Bitcoin is as good as we all think it is, it will stand up to the competition just fine.  If it fails to something superior, that's the way it should be.

Competition may not be good for bitcoin, but it is good for us (bitcoin users).

FTFY : Competition may not be good for bitcoin, but it is good for us (bitcoin alt crypto-currency users).

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

Whatever opinion everyone has on litecoin, I suggest that calling it a pyramid scheme - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin - does a disservice to both Bitcoin and litecoin as its a likely starting point google search for anyone new to the whole thing, basically if litecoin is so similar and had of come first it would have been bitcoin that was labeled the pyramid scheme as described here.

Using a Bitcoin logo as the header could use a re-think too.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

[cbeast]

The whole idea behind alternate coins was to test new properties. Namecoin was a great idea, but just didn't get traction. I don't see any other alternatives offering anything unique and beneficial to distinguish them from Bitcoin. Competition has favored Bitcoin so far.

[smoothie]

The whole idea behind alternate coins was to test new properties. Namecoin was a great idea, but just didn't get traction. I don't see any other alternatives offering anything unique and beneficial to distinguish them from Bitcoin. Competition has favored Bitcoin so far.

Sometimes "uniqueness" is not being different but being a secondary choice.

With every good thing there are choices.

Coke/Pepsi

Ford/Toyota

Myspace/Facebook

McDonalds/Burger King

[Lethn]

I consider them your backup currencies to be honest, in case someone discovers a serious flaw with Bitcoin or it turns out Satoshi Nakamoto is really our evil overlord and intends to conquer the world with Bitcoin

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I consider them your backup currencies to be honest, in case someone discovers a serious flaw with Bitcoin or it turns out Satoshi Nakamoto is really our evil overlord and intends to conquer the world with Bitcoin

I doubt a flaw in bitcoin wouldn't be present in litecoin too...

[cbeast]

The whole idea behind alternate coins was to test new properties. Namecoin was a great idea, but just didn't get traction. I don't see any other alternatives offering anything unique and beneficial to distinguish them from Bitcoin. Competition has favored Bitcoin so far.

Sometimes "uniqueness" is not being different but being a secondary choice.

With every good thing there are choices.

Coke/Pepsi

Ford/Toyota

Myspace/Facebook

McDonalds/Burger King

Bitcoin has had a lot of time and money pumped into marketing. I don't see anyone spending millions marketing Litecoin. Maybe someone should give it a shot!

[nevafuse]

Competition would be healthy for cryptocurrency...not sure it'd be healthy for bitcoin though.  Which is fine because I don't care as much about bitcoin as I care about the cryptocurrency movement in general.  Depending on how smooth the next bitcoin fork will be, several alts may be born.  If bitcoin starts hitting that 1MB limit & a fork never takes off, then I can see an alt that fixes that issue taking off.  But for the time being, bitcoin is still working fine for me, and I personally won't switch until these issues start becoming more of a problem.

[acoindr]

It is useful to be able to store value in bitcoins and use that as collateral to borrow something else to actually spend.

It is a pain having to have that something else lack the convenience of cryptocurrency, thus it is good to have several cryptocurrencies to choose among when picking what to borrow. You are looking for one that is not climbing in value as fast as bitcoins are, basically.

Thus I do not see multiple cryptocurrencies as "competition" so much as "symbiosis" or "enhancement". Using bitcoins as collateral to borrow bitcoins does not seem to make as much sense as borrowing something else, with which if more bitcoins is what you actually want you can then buy more bitcoins. Having to use fiat as that second asset is not as nice as using another cryptocurrency.

-MarkM-

Thank you! At least one person knows the word symbiosis. Everyone else, please look it up!
It's what makes (non-commercial) sour-dough lower GI, more nutritious, and all-round superior to ordinary bread.
It's what makes mixed forests more disease and fire-resistant compared to single-species plantations.

Symbiosis is a Nash Equilibrium that's spread across different species/protocols/etc. It's also a dynamic equilibrium -- competitive and cooperative strategies all playing out and endlessly adjusting to external conditions.

I think one of Bitcoin's weaknesses right now is that it could easily get shocked if a strong competitor emerges. MySpace meets Facebook -- "OMG what just happened?!" It's much more "sportsman-like" to embrace competition because they help you identify weaknesses in yourself, and that helps you to improve.

+1

[franky1]

thanks (sacasticly) to Luke Jr for trying to make lite coin look bad

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Litecoin&diff=prev&oldid=35713

luke JR has a personal grudge against litecoin and has been at it since late november 2011 putting in false and vindictive comments about litecoin.

why??

because he knows litecoin has potential. i dont tell people to read the wiki on litecoin because its now one mans fud files and no longer a source of truth.

instead i give out free litecoins and let people try it out for themselves. if they done like it, they can always stop using it.

luke Jr has obviously missed out all the social values of bitcoin and only cares about the financial value of bitcoin. thats why he creates the fud.

i dont care which digital currency goes mainstream and takes over the likes of paypal and other payment processors that have geriatric banking restrictions. as long as one does, and has a good reason in doing so.

there are too many anonymous people wanting bitcoin to stay anonymous so they can continue doing dodgy dealings, there are too many profiteer's not wanting a world invasion which will cause a stablised price.

so for me litecoins is the perfect candidate for mainstreaming.

let bitcoin be the amsterdam currency for drugs, guns and prostitutes, along with cheap electronics. and let litecoin be for everything else.

openly trading with each other. lots of people talking about making a bitcoin have red and green addresses depending on what its used for. well litecoin can be the green address.