Bitcoin needs altcoins because ...

[Rinder]

Altcoins are a great way to get bitcoin nowadays, bitcoin does need others coins to upgrade and become better, without altcoin i doubt some features would be made over bitcoin. But in the general people spreading their bitcoin between others altcoins with the hope that they can get roi and make good money something that bitcoin had made in the past, nowadays its getting harder to make money with bitcoin just.

[dearbesz1219]

If Most people here said that Bitcoin is the number one leading digital currency in cryptoworld, my comment on that it was true. And I just want to add more about it. Bitcoin also is back up by the altcoins too, because it is the reason why many community in bitcoin industry of why they are capable of buying in bitcoin, it is also the main reason why most of the exchangers survive for a couple of years, many of their traders are buying altcoin to their exchange platform. We cannot deny it.

[RoommateAgreement]

the only reason why bitcoin may need altcoins is that they help people who have invested in bitcoin, earn more bitcoin when they trade altcoins.

lets face the reality here. most altcoins are shitcoins that copy an altcoin code, freely available to public, change a little and call it a new name.
the remaining are not so different themselves, they change a little more of the code and just hype the rest saying their coing is the best and then die in a while without accomplishing anything.

[virasog]

for some reason we need alts because it shows competition inside crypto industry if bitcoin alone it will take some time to gain some good cash and because of alt industry we able to get some options to trade our btc and hold some alts and sell it when the market shows strong movement i see alt as a another options to earn.

Some cryptocurrencies, in addition to having a larger market relative to others, have interesting proposals, and in fact may have real use in the future. The problem is with coins that offer features that do not solve any real-world problems, and work like pump and dump schemes. Such coins lead some users to lose money, and this is not a good thing for the cryptocurrency space.

I agree with this, this is why alt coin made to be trade to bitcoin though some coins try to defeat bitcoin but they can’t because of the strongness of it and I can see on how people uses bitcoin and sees it as profitable compare to other coins there.

[avikz]

I truly agree that bitcoin needs altcoins to survive otherwise member will not be able to trade with bitcoin. You need to have an instrument to trade with bitcoin to make any coin viable.

However, looking at the present number of altcoins, it doesn't seem to be a good idea anyhow. Currently we have around 900 odd altcoins which is not at all good for the crypto economy in any way. The investments are getting divided and bitcoin is not getting the desired investment required for growth. 

[Rahar02]

...

- 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?

We always doubt about altcoins will come and take over the market leader from bitcoin.
As you've mentioned that alts could consider as testnet for bitcoin due to what they improve and implemented to the coins could applied to bitcoin technology if fits for it.
What you missed maybe about a better technology that could compete with bitcoin, that's why we need others dev teams to be creative and create the better way to, I think another coin will do it. We need an alternative, right? Just in case.

[pixie85]

I truly agree that bitcoin needs altcoins to survive otherwise member will not be able to trade with bitcoin. You need to have an instrument to trade with bitcoin to make any coin viable.

Is fiat not enough. This is the most popular trading instrument. Stock exchanges somehow work without altcoins.

However, looking at the present number of altcoins, it doesn't seem to be a good idea anyhow. Currently we have around 900 odd altcoins which is not at all good for the crypto economy in any way. The investments are getting divided and bitcoin is not getting the desired investment required for growth. 

And out of those 900 how many will end up as scamcoins? Nobody knows...

[basesaw]

I truly agree that bitcoin needs altcoins to survive otherwise member will not be able to trade with bitcoin. You need to have an instrument to trade with bitcoin to make any coin viable.

Is fiat not enough. This is the most popular trading instrument. Stock exchanges somehow work without altcoins.

However, looking at the present number of altcoins, it doesn't seem to be a good idea anyhow. Currently we have around 900 odd altcoins which is not at all good for the crypto economy in any way. The investments are getting divided and bitcoin is not getting the desired investment required for growth. 

And out of those 900 how many will end up as scamcoins? Nobody knows...

maybe its just good to have alt coins. alt coins help to balance the value of bitcoin. as the investors invest from the other alt coins they always depends on bitcoin. it is good that bitcoin supports them. its like the us dollars and the other currencies all over the world. we always based the market in us dollars.

[izanagi narukami]

It's natural process , if there is a famous currency with known algorithm , people will try to make their own coin based what bitcoin have

Altcoin market also interest people so it will attract more people to get involve into bitcoin more deeper

[virasog]

I truly agree that bitcoin needs altcoins to survive otherwise member will not be able to trade with bitcoin. You need to have an instrument to trade with bitcoin to make any coin viable.

However, looking at the present number of altcoins, it doesn't seem to be a good idea anyhow. Currently we have around 900 odd altcoins which is not at all good for the crypto economy in any way. The investments are getting divided and bitcoin is not getting the desired investment required for growth. 

Altcoins is not necessary to have but yes, it really creates earning opportunity both for the altcoin owners and traders to get benefit from trade. Also all the big exchange sites like Bitfinex, poloniex and Ccex etc are runing because of people interest in trading in bitcoins.

[kryptqnick]

...

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

This one is obviously more about alts needing btc, not the opposite.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

How comes? Maybe you are right but I don't get it. I thought that alternative currencies make bitcoin more open and exchangeable for something close to it and so they all become parts of one economy.
Anyway, I think it is true that bitcoin won't be alone forever, because when there is something strong it got to have an analogous strong opponent, like USD and EURO, good and bad etc.

[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.

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.

I did not say they were equal in size or price, I said competition even if other altcoins don't have the market share or price of bitcoin that does not mean they don’t have some good characteristics that we may find useful.

[krisnt80]

Altcoins were made in the general like a better version then bitcoin, some of them has huge potencial to grow, and they handled the best way the transactions confirmations time, that some are instant, sure bitcoin were and will be always the first and its one of the main reason of the huge sucess, nowadays i doubt there will be any other altcoin able to replace, miners wont allow such thing to happen.

[soros017]

for some reason we need alts because it shows competition inside crypto industry if bitcoin alone it will take some time to gain some good cash and because of alt industry we able to get some options to trade our btc and hold some alts and sell it when the market shows strong movement i see alt as a another options to earn.

bitcoin do not need any alt coin because when it was created there was no other currency and the bitcoin users were not feeling the need to have any other crypto currenc, but now as most of the people are interested in trading therefore altcoin is the best option for them and they can invest their bitcoin in alt coin when they need so and when they realize that bitcoin price is not stable, other wise bitcoin do not need any alt coin.

Bitcoin could probably continue to succeed if there were no altcoins. However, these altcoins bring new possibilities that can help Bitcoin, and allow some resources to be tested before Bitcoin receives such improvements. Litecoin, for example, is considering implementing SegWit before Bitcoin, and this will let we know how this improvement can work.

[BitcoinPanther]

I truly agree that bitcoin needs altcoins to survive otherwise member will not be able to trade with bitcoin. You need to have an instrument to trade with bitcoin to make any coin viable.

However, looking at the present number of altcoins, it doesn't seem to be a good idea anyhow. Currently we have around 900 odd altcoins which is not at all good for the crypto economy in any way. The investments are getting divided and bitcoin is not getting the desired investment required for growth. 

On the contrary, isnt it altcoin needs bitcoin to survive?  Altcoin may help Bitcoin greatly in terms of promotion but if you say for bitcoin to survive it needs to hold to altcoin, Altcoin even blemish the name of Bitcoin due both of them are cryptocurrency, any scam done by altcoin has a direct impact to bitcoin.  As a matter of fact, altcoins bring more bad image to bitcoin than its help to promotion.

[boybugs18]

bitcoin needs altcoins because it will be the testground of some implementation before going to bitcoin and I think altcoins purpose is to fill up the missing solution bitcoin cant give I cant state what problems are available still. Altcoins are ways of saying they have new idea that bitcoin circle cant adapt and it giving some good volumes on exchanges.

[BitcoinHodler]

bitcoin needs altcoins because it will be the testground of some implementation before going to bitcoin

well that is wrong. because we never have tested anything on altcoins before adding to bitcoin and we never will. because simply there is a testnet (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet) available which is completely the same as bitcoin and we have always been testing things there before release.

[Bitcotalk]

Sometimes I think that if all of the crypto developers work only for one currency bitcoin then it will become a most stronger and successful currency all over the world and within only a few years bitcoin will become a global currency so I am pointing out that bitcoin do not need altcoins for its success but a cooperative work for it.

[BitcoinPC]

Sometimes I think that if all of the crypto developers work only for one currency bitcoin then it will become a most stronger and successful currency all over the world and within only a few years bitcoin will become a global currency so I am pointing out that bitcoin do not need altcoins for its success but a cooperative work for it.

Bitcoin need altcoins because it needs competition. When there is no competition then bitcoin wont flourish much as it is doing now. Some altcoins has more greater features and bitcoin will adapt them and it will help bitcoin to grow more and more every passing day. Lets take this altcoin thing a positive one for bitcoins.

[South Park]

...

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

This one is obviously more about alts needing btc, not the opposite.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

How comes? Maybe you are right but I don't get it. I thought that alternative currencies make bitcoin more open and exchangeable for something close to it and so they all become parts of one economy.
Anyway, I think it is true that bitcoin won't be alone forever, because when there is something strong it got to have an analogous strong opponent, like USD and EURO, good and bad etc.

This is true, one of the reasons for having altcoins is a very simple one, don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, if something were to happen to bitcoin, a vulnerability on the code or something, then we will need to start from scratch all over again but with altcoins we can just move to another coin without the vulnerability.