Bitcoin needs altcoins because ...

[hv_]

...

- Alts work like a testnet for bitcoins (looking forward seeing Litecoin with SegWit)

- Once an alt feature looks working it might get adopted no matter onchain or in a side chain. (RSK)

- Alts mostly need bitcoin to trade and some bitcoins might be always reserved / locked for this.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

My favorit comes here:

- Alts work like an infinite fear generator (Hydra) against any try of regulators to bring bitcoin down, since there are too many to kill and its very easy to just create a new one (like a Hydra cannot be killed by chopping off some heads, even the biggest one!) > crypto world is anti fragile and it will stay on this solar system from year 2009 on.


Any other things missing here?

[cellard]

...

- Alts work like a testnet for bitcoins (looking forward seeing Litecoin with SegWit)

- Once an alt feature looks working it might get adopted no matter onchain or in a side chain. (RSK)

- Alts mostly need bitcoin to trade and some bitcoins might be always reserved / locked for this.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

My favorit comes here:

- Alts work like an infinite fear generator (Hydra) against any try of regulators to bring bitcoin down, since there are too many to kill and its very easy to just create a new one (like a Hydra cannot be killed by chopping off some heads, even the biggest one!) > crypto world is anti fragile and it will stay on this solar system from year 2009 on.


Any other things missing here?

Because we want more bitcoins... and altcoins are the only way to trade and get more bitcoins without having to give your bank accounts and all sort of credentials into all those shady ass exchanges in order for you to trade.

Alts will always exist because people love gambling.

[Ayers]

I don't agree with the testnet, because we have already the teestnet with bitcoin, if you want tot ry something you can try it there without making an altcoin to scam investors, altcoin are bad for another reason and is the fact that they remove liquidity to the bitcoin market, if someone want to buy many altcoin he will dump bitcoin for them because it's the easy way instead of going with fiat first

[South Park]

Competition, altcoins are needed to bring competition to bitcoin, nothing good comes from a monopoly so by having altcoins there are more ways for people to make money, to receive payments, it gives us the chance to choose the crypto currency that has the best characteristics for what we are looking for.

[hajimasan]

If there's no altcoin then more than 50% of its user will quit bitcoin because then there will be Less possibility of trading and making profit from it. Without altcoin bitcoin is nothing for traders who deal with multiple coins. And also for the market competition altcoin are needed.

[hv_]

I don't agree with the testnet, because we have already the teestnet with bitcoin, if you want tot ry something you can try it there without making an altcoin to scam investors, altcoin are bad for another reason and is the fact that they remove liquidity to the bitcoin market, if someone want to buy many altcoin he will dump bitcoin for them because it's the easy way instead of going with fiat first

I understand what you say and I mostly agree but scams might be always there but with anti fragility they will disappear again. People get educated!

I also do not want to promote alts here but since they are here try to find a reason for.

[BrewMaster]

i mainly agree on altcoins being a testing ground for newer features. you can not easily change bitcoin because reaching consensus among millions of people who are using bitcoin is hard.

but in an altcoin that only a couple of users using it or even new coins with new features is easy and a good thing to see new features on.

although these days altcoin word means pump and dump but if we can see one among hundreds that comes a bit close to this goal i think we can win.

[Yakamoto]

...

- Alts work like a testnet for bitcoins (looking forward seeing Litecoin with SegWit)

- Once an alt feature looks working it might get adopted no matter onchain or in a side chain. (RSK)

- Alts mostly need bitcoin to trade and some bitcoins might be always reserved / locked for this.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

My favorit comes here:

- Alts work like an infinite fear generator (Hydra) against any try of regulators to bring bitcoin down, since there are too many to kill and its very easy to just create a new one (like a Hydra cannot be killed by chopping off some heads, even the biggest one!) > crypto world is anti fragile and it will stay on this solar system from year 2009 on.


Any other things missing here?

Imo Bitcoin does not need Altcoins, and while it does offer some things like competition and a sort of separate economy within the crypto world that trades much like stock markets in the real world, a lot of the things listed aren't really "benefits" for Bitcoin. Very little that comes from altcoin development is ever implemented in the full chain.

[basesaw]

bitcoin needs altcoins because bitcoin needs help from other source of crypto currencies. if bitcoin itself is just running in the online market, then other users will just think that its boring if it just bitcoin who is running in the online world. maybe they would choose other investment rather than bitcoin so thay can play in the market.

[DarkIT]

because with altcoin, bitcoin prices could rise to the height. I feel that 50% of the price of bitcoin, influenced by altcoin. because, some people count the number altcoin with bitcoin. bitcoin has always been a role model for altcoin. so, anyone who uses altcoin, will certainly pay attention to bitcoin, and vice versa.

[ImHash]

Alternative coins are useful as long as mining them is profitable, besides the usual premined and scamming coins, most of them if not all are completely useless and since bitcoin is no longer profitable for home miners and small miners people decided to create some alternative ways to earn some money but others exploited that and turned it into a way for scamming.

[Senor.Bla]

Bitcoin does not need altcoins, but they also do not hurt Bitcoin. They can be beneficial, because they bring new ideas to the table, but if something works on an altcoin it is not a given that it will work with Bitcoin. Or the other way round, if it does not work with altcoin it is not a given that it also will not work with Bitcoin.

[m5city]

without us ,without europe, withour china, without india, world will be not a perfect world! so bitcoin needs alts!

[nelson4lov]

Bitcoin does not need altcoins, but they also do not hurt Bitcoin. They can be beneficial, because they bring new ideas to the table, but if something works on an altcoin it is not a given that it will work with Bitcoin. Or the other way round, if it does not work with altcoin it is not a given that it also will not work with Bitcoin.

I might have to disagree with you on that. Bitcoin really needs Altcoins around. You already said it yourself. Altcoins bring along with them, New Tech and New Ideas that makes People want to join the CryptoCurrency Community.

Keep in mind that this isn't about Bitcoin alone. It's about Cryptocurrency — How it changes lives and enhance Payments. Believe me, If bitcoin was the only CryptoCurrency, It wouldn't get the attention It's currently getting. Also There's a need for competition between Bitcoin and altcoins.  So one way or another, Bitcoin needs Altcoins. I maybe wrong though

[bitbunnny]

I'm not quite sure that altcoins are necessary for Bitcoin it could function even without them with no difficulties. But altcoins are the way of competition so they could maybe  help Bitcoin to be improved. And who knows maybe one day some realy strong altcoin will appear that could seriously compete Bitcoin.

[BitcoinExpart]

I also hardly believe that Alternative coins are useful and its necessary for bitcoin.Nowadays, there are hundreds of Cryptocurrency Coins available on the market and some of them are profitable thats why we could trade them in various site. Bitcoin needs altcoins because this service is useful also the most profitable.

[bitbob82]

Competition, altcoins are needed to bring competition to bitcoin, nothing good comes from a monopoly so by having altcoins there are more ways for people to make money, to receive payments, it gives us the chance to choose the crypto currency that has the best characteristics for what we are looking for.

i think not a single alt coin can compare to bitcoin, because the uses of bitcoin are more than any other currency. and the second is  that bitcoin do not need for any alt coin.  i think alt coin can only be use for trading.

[morningman]

Monero (XMR) is an altcoin that is being used for something other than trading. And, I believe, DASH is as well.
FYI: Don't get haughty about Bitcoin and believing no other coin can replace it. Contraire, if the majority decides to switch to a less expensive altcoin that has similar or greater attributes all that has to occur is adoption. There are many coins such as Dash, Monero, Spectre, Cloakcoin, Shadowcoin that could possibly provide more anonymity.

[DooMAD]

I don't agree with the testnet, because we have already the teestnet with bitcoin, if you want tot ry something you can try it there without making an altcoin to scam investors, altcoin are bad for another reason and is the fact that they remove liquidity to the bitcoin market, if someone want to buy many altcoin he will dump bitcoin for them because it's the easy way instead of going with fiat first

Some concepts are inherently incompatible with Bitcoin's design.  How do you figure we could implement something like 'Proof of Capacity' (hdd mining) and 'Directed Acyclic Graphs' (blockchain alternative) in Bitcoin?  It's just not feasible.  There's no alternative due to how vastly different they are.  Some potentially viable ideas have to be tested in altcoins.  Plus you can't just add your own new features to the testnet to try them out, that's not how it works.  If the feature you add doesn't comply with the network rules, you would fork from the testnet and create... you guessed it... an altcoin.  Keep an open mind.

[Slark]

Op, I disagree with your view. I don't think we need altcoins at all, certainly not to make BTC stronger. IMO altcoins act like a distraction.
Imagine the world without altcoins where instead wasting your time on altcoin XYY, XYZ and XZZ everyone would focus on bitcoin.
We would be sitting on 4 digits per BTC now, maybe more. Bitcoin would be huge unstoppable force, to the point to not care about any government regulations.