Bitcoin needs altcoins because ...

[bravehearth0319]

...

- 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?

Altcoin is a big help to bitcoin, because I'am one of the community in this industry who used altcoin and do trade also in the exchange sites for me to have a chance to have bitcoin balance in to my wallet.

[Bibite]

Because It's bring a diversity for Altcoins traders, and all traders will tell you diversity is needed. And as well it can help bitcoin to improve

[CraigWrightBTC]

Because It's bring a diversity for Altcoins traders, and all traders will tell you diversity is needed. And as well it can help bitcoin to improve

And the other reason related trading because the Bitcoin is like all other financial assets, competition must bring its A-game. Altcoins offer some competition in this regard, but a legitimate unsuccessful threat of crypto-replacement currency is even going to Bitcoin. Without altcoins, Bitcoin was very different from the way we know it today.

[Altcoinfanatic]

In the scalability debate, we have another point in favour of the "altcoins as a testnet for Bitcoin" argument:

Bitcoin's Segwit adoption seems to have been stalled. But not everything is lost: I expect that altcoins will eventually drive Bitcoin to a solution - literally from the bottom of the "small shitcoins" up to the "first-tier" leader, BTC. Because there are already altcoins adopting SegWit, and Bitcoin eventually will have to follow to ensure its leading role in cryptocurrency.

So Groestlcoin - a "fourth-tier" altcoin - has activated Segwit at the end of January as the first cryptocurrency, and the soft fork went on without problems (that's also the reason for it's price pump).

Now you can say, GRS is a very small altcoin with a under-complex network. But there are third-tier altcoins following its adoption (e.g. Viacoin) and will probably implement it in the near future. Then Litecoin as a second-tier altcoin could follow - its Segwit signalling is still very low but increased competence from smaller alts will eventually pressure miners to adopt it. And if LTC adopts it, I expect a strong pressure to Bitcoin miners to adopt it, too.

You can follow altcoin Segwit adoption here: Altcoins with Segwit support

Syscoin also activated segwit with hardfork (emergency fix, the blockchain was stuck)

[st0nefish]

I do not think Bitcoin needs altcoins. Each altcoin brings different innovations. But as a payment system, Bitcoin already meets our needs.
Even if there is no altcoin, bitcoin will continue to exist in the population.

[OrangeII]

I do not think Bitcoin needs altcoins. Each altcoin brings different innovations. But as a payment system, Bitcoin already meets our needs.
Even if there is no altcoin, bitcoin will continue to exist in the population.

I think bitcoin also need altcoin to foster price. Well, to buy altcoin, or distribute bitcoin, sometimes it takes a bitcoin, so, people need to form altcoin bitcoin, and bitcoin it makes the price to rise. Well, now very much a project and of course it affects the price of bitcoin.

[Ewox]

Without competition Bitcoin wouldn't be on top. To gain more Bitcoin, one should have an alternative crypto currency and thus traders are trading Altcoins to Bitcoins. And also they are making investors eager to get a hold of more Bitcoins, that is why now there are a lot of Altcoins but even though there are a lot of traders investing on these Altcoins; their sole purpose still is to convert those Altcoins into Bitcoins.

[buwaytress]

Not that bitcoin needs alt rather that it shouldn't see alts as reductive. An alternative is simply that. Bitcoin wasn't meant to displace or to monopolize it was itself an alternative.

That said, can't see how an alt is bad in any way for bitcoin.

[rajasumi3]

i think that altcoin is very necessary to create a competition in the  bitcoin market . without the help of altcoins traders will totally dump the bitcoins .
well you can say that too many gambling websites will also go down as the market for bitcoins is not created . we want more bitcoins in the market thats why are always supporting bitcoins.

[ekoice]

...

- 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?

Bitcoin is created first and it doesnot need altcoins.Only altcoins are in desperate need of bitcoin and even their values are based on bitcoin value.Only when bitcoin price falls,altcoin price increases.But altcoin has given a benefit to bitcoin.When any authorities think of banning bitcoins,immediately their attention falls on altcoins which would then replace bitcoin and its highly impossible for them to ban all altcoins.So they just drop their idea of banning bitcoins.

[Taki]

I do not think Bitcoin needs altcoins. Each altcoin brings different innovations. But as a payment system, Bitcoin already meets our needs.
Even if there is no altcoin, bitcoin will continue to exist in the population.

Altcoins are good competitors to Bitcoin and I think it just needs it. All of them were created on bitcoin's base and I think one of them can take the place of bitcoin one day.

[dinofelis]

... punch cards need SSD storage...

 

[iamnotback]

Any other things missing here?

Because Bitcoin will never scale without altcoins. No significant protocol changes will ever be made to Bitcoin. Bitcoiners need to get this nailed into their thick skulls. Read the following:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1663070.msg18424568#msg18424568

Bitcoin will achieve maximum value by enabling SegWit on Litecoin. There is no other option going forward. The above linked post explains why in detail.

[SvenBomvolen]

I do not think Bitcoin needs altcoins. Each altcoin brings different innovations. But as a payment system, Bitcoin already meets our needs.
Even if there is no altcoin, bitcoin will continue to exist in the population.

Altcoins are good competitors to Bitcoin and I think it just needs it. All of them were created on bitcoin's base and I think one of them can take the place of bitcoin one day.

I am disagree. I think bitcoin can be on the top without altcoins and all of them are weak competitors which not affect on bitcoin's price at all. If altcoins will disappear bitcoin users will not even notice that. Nothing will change. That's right that all of them just want to repeat the success of bitcoin, but I doubt that any of them can fly so high indeed.

[iamnotback]

I am disagree. I think bitcoin can be on the top without altcoins and all of them are weak competitors which not affect on bitcoin's price at all.

Bitcoin is created first and it doesnot need altcoins.

You're thinking is incorrect. Read my prior post in this thread, click the link I provided, and pay attention. You're going to learn some new things.

Altcoins are good competitors to Bitcoin and I think it just needs it.

Incorrect. Most of the speculation value from altcoins ends up in BTC, not in the altcoins. Altcoins are complementary to BTC. The reason BTC percentage of market cap is diving lately is because Bitcoiners are trying to force protocol changes to Bitcoin, instead of doing it on Litecoin, and so no progress is being made at all. Stuck in the mud.

Bitcoiners need to re-orient their thinking. Read my prior post and click the link and read more.

[2012]

Bitcoin needs altcoins because of its limited supply which can be deal with all the necessary fronts in future. We are going towards a era of digital currencies Bitcoin is going to remain and dominates being most trusted but altcoins are also necessary in this market. The differences of valuation will let every type of people to benefit of these currencies to perform different things.

[FlightyPouch]

I don't think that bitcoin is made as a tesnet for bitcoin, that is really rude to say especially to the developers of many altcoins. These altcoin testnet for bitcoin was brought up on Roger Ver's interview by the Bitcoin Meister, Rover Ver disagree with it because he also don't want to do it, and he dont want to put any of his money on other altcoin and use it to test this. Altcoins just bring competition to bitcoin, it was also brought up by the help of bitcoin so we can say that altcoins are the childs of bitcoin.

[Nevis]

well bitcoin is the backbone of all alt coin. not bitcoin no alt coin.s this is so because without bitcoin people will not be able to make transaction n stores and websites and value of alt coin will definitely touch the ground. and people make money (profit) by trading with alt coins and due to this people need bitcoin for initiating the process of trading so alt coin coin is need for bitcoin's smooth running.

Not all of alt coins are depending and relying on botcoins in this days sir i think.There are altcoins that is based through gold market and any other market present in today.Maybe most of them is sustained and sypported by bitcoin but not all of them depends on bitcoin

[javeed1]

Bitcoin does not need altcoins.

 

[btvGainer]

Bitcoin does not need altcoins.

 

Unfortunately it does.Suppose there were no Altcoin, people would switch back to fiat in bearish times and chances of them coming back to btc were less.
Now they have an alternative in Altcoin and any fall in btc price is comepensated with the rise in Altcoin price.
But yes there should not be hundreds if Altcoin. I think only 20 would have been better.