I've mentioned this in a minor post on another thread but thought it deserved it's own thread.
There's discussion of alt coins success devaluing
BTC because it shows that anyone* can just take the Bitcoin protocol, tweak it a bit and create their own blockchain.
The defence is that Bitcoin has first mover advantage because of the network effect.
However when I say *anyone, that's not quite true unless you offer something over and above
BTC but I can think of some entities that could easily outpower Bitcoin if they move quickly and push it to the public.
If I was Amazon, right now I would be developing my own block chain in their cloud with the first blocks being offering for free to customers with the promise that the 'codes' can be used for purchases of goods later or given as gift vouchers.
With Amazon's audience that would take off pretty quickly among people who've never heard of Bitcoin. Once that takes off open up a simple market place and people could buy and sell the 'vouchers' by sending the address, a la Instawallet. Bang, Amazon and all their merchants accept 'Customer Loyalty Coin' as payment.
The general public would trust them way more than an anonymous crypto currency that the news has told them is made by hackers and used by drug dealers.
Repeat for Apple, Ebay, Google Play and Bitcoin is relegated back to the black market. Still a big market but now easily outlawed.
If they aren't doing this then someone who knows the code should be offering this as a customer loyalty service to any consumer website using their own alt coin.
I'm tempted to do it myself but I haven't done any C++ for years and don't have the time. If this idea makes anyone rich please donate a few
BTC to 1zL3V6FCwqudH4LeNU8fSKXnp7KwFAoej