Why would there be just one cryptocurrency?

[johnny_day]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and move me if this is the wrong board, but in my opinion we should not focus on how to make Bitcoin do everything. Right now Bitcoin works well as a store of value, digital gold if you will. A $1 transaction fee means nothing to a $1,000,000 transaction. It does however severely cripple smaller payments, something that a cryptocurrency could be very good at.

Now it is my understanding that the point of SegWit/BU is to allow Bitcoin to be used for smaller payments by bringing that transaction fee down. Instead of making Bitcoin the jack of all trades, why not have multiple cryptocurrencies that each excel in their own areas? Leave Bitcoin exactly as is, and invest money and time into establishing a micropayment currency, a smart contract currency, etc...

Just some food for though.
Johnny


tl;dr
Why try and make Bitcoin do everything instead of having an ecosystem of specialized currencies?

[ebliever]

This has always been my opinion - that there are many different financial niches, and there will ultimately be highly optimized cryptocurrencies for each one. I used to think there would be 4 or 5 major cryptos, now I think the number of "successful" ones will ultimately range into the hundreds. Which is to say, there are still a ton more on Coinmarketcap than we really need.... but the competition is good in the long run. :-)

[hatshepsut93]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and move me if this is the wrong board, but in my opinion we should not focus on how to make Bitcoin do everything. Right now Bitcoin works well as a store of value, digital gold if you will. A $1 transaction fee means nothing to a $1,000,000 transaction. It does however severely cripple smaller payments, something that a cryptocurrency could be very good at.

Now it is my understanding that the point of SegWit/BU is to allow Bitcoin to be used for smaller payments by bringing that transaction fee down. Instead of making Bitcoin the jack of all trades, why not have multiple cryptocurrencies that each excel in their own areas? Leave Bitcoin exactly as is, and invest money and time into establishing a micropayment currency, a smart contract currency, etc...

Just some food for though.
Johnny

You can use any other cryptocurrency as a transfer for value, it will just come with increased fees due to a need to exchange it to btc and than to fiat, if it's not possible to convert it to fiat directly (right now you can only do this for top altcoins, like Ethereum or Dash). What makes Bitcoin special is the number of nodes and mining power behind it's network, it serves as insurance that your transfer won't get hijacked, or someone will manipulate the blockchain.

[dinofelis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and move me if this is the wrong board, but in my opinion we should not focus on how to make Bitcoin do everything. Right now Bitcoin works well as a store of value, digital gold if you will. A $1 transaction fee means nothing to a $1,000,000 transaction. It does however severely cripple smaller payments, something that a cryptocurrency could be very good at.

Now it is my understanding that the point of SegWit/BU is to allow Bitcoin to be used for smaller payments by bringing that transaction fee down. Instead of making Bitcoin the jack of all trades, why not have multiple cryptocurrencies that each excel in their own areas? Leave Bitcoin exactly as is, and invest money and time into establishing a micropayment currency, a smart contract currency, etc...

Just some food for though.
Johnny

I agree perfectly with that.  But for the moment, bitcoin is dominant because its first mover advantage is still very high ; its first mover advantage also gives it the biggest network, the strongest chain and so on.  When you look at the major alt coins, they are only 2 - 4 years old.  That was when bitcoin was in 2011 - 2013 to compare - although it would be incorrect to think that they will "repeat bitcoin".

[johnny_day]

You can use any other cryptocurrency as a transfer for value, it will just come with increased fees due to a need to exchange it to btc and than to fiat, if it's not possible to convert it to fiat directly (right now you can only do this for top altcoins, like Ethereum or Dash). What makes Bitcoin special is the number of nodes and mining power behind it's network, it serves as insurance that your transfer won't get hijacked, or someone will manipulate the blockchain.

Right, I figured at least one of my statements was incorrect. Please don't let that distract you from the main message: Why try and make Bitcoin do everything instead of having an ecosystem of specialized currencies?

[Memento]

There are 2.

Bitcoin - Digital Gold.
Dash - Digital Cash.

[target]

There are hundreds of altcoins already which each has some features of their own which is why its going to be best to also make it grow unlike concentrating everything on bitcoin when all who benifits are just the few who has stash of more than a thousand of it. We are only making these whales richer every time we get to buy btc when the purpose why I buy btc is to also buy the token I'm supporting.

This is definitely one of the discussion I'm going to watch.

[Senor.Bla]

You have to take two things into account.
Specialization is maximizing effectiveness, but people with low knowledge don't want to waste much time and prefer an all in one solution.
We could all drive the same car, but it makes sense that we have special cars for different purposes, like big and small cars, trucks, buses and so on. The same goes for cryptos. Specialization is good, since you have always trad offs. Altcoins can play an important role and don't have to compete with Bitcoin.
But we sell cryptos to the people as the future of money, so when it comes to payment they want one coin that can it all. We should pay less attention to the monetary value of altcoins and have in focus what they can do best and utilize this.

[Coinster]

Please don't let that distract you from the main message: Why try and make Bitcoin do everything instead of having an ecosystem of specialized currencies?

It's a good question. The answer has to do with the properties of currency itself. Try a thought experiment: Say you go to the grocery store and the cashier tells you your total is 565 Goblats. You look in your wallet or on your phone and see that of the 1,000 currencies you have, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether etc. you don't have any Goblats. What do you do? Try to find somebody to make an exchange? All you want to do is pay and leave.

On the other hand say the merchant doesn't want to miss any sales so he accepts 5,000 currencies. How does he manage the exchange rate? Some coins may lose 40% in one day or even one hour!

See the problem? For currency, people (average people, not traders) only want very few choices, not many as it makes things too complicated.

[johnny_day]

It's a good question. The answer has to do with the properties of currency itself. Try a thought experiment: Say you go to the grocery store and the cashier tells you your total is 565 Goblats. You look in your wallet or on your phone and see that of the 1,000 currencies you have, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether etc. you don't have any Goblats. What do you do? Try to find somebody to make an exchange? All you want to do is pay and leave.

On the other hand say the merchant doesn't want to miss any sales so he accepts 5,000 currencies. How does he manage the exchange rate? Some coins may lose 40% in one day or even one hour!

See the problem? For currency, people (average people, not traders) only want very few choices, not many as it makes things too complicated.

I see the problem with there being 5,000 currencies. I don't see the problem with there being 3-10. Bitcoin for your savings, an altcoin for your every day purchases, an altcoin for investing with, etc... Also with proper wallet software the user wouldn't have to think twice about how to pay. Even if there were 5,000 options.

[Coinster]

I see the problem with there being 5,000 currencies. I don't see the problem with there being 3-10. Bitcoin for your savings, an altcoin for your every day purchases, an altcoin for investing with, etc... Also with proper wallet software the user wouldn't have to think twice about how to pay. Even if there were 5,000 options.

Yes, I think you're right about 3-10. As for wallet software being able to manage a high number of currencies, that's true too, but there is another problem which is every single currency created can't have value! There is no limit to people creating currencies now with open-source cryptocurrency software.

[South Park]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and move me if this is the wrong board, but in my opinion we should not focus on how to make Bitcoin do everything. Right now Bitcoin works well as a store of value, digital gold if you will. A $1 transaction fee means nothing to a $1,000,000 transaction. It does however severely cripple smaller payments, something that a cryptocurrency could be very good at.

Now it is my understanding that the point of SegWit/BU is to allow Bitcoin to be used for smaller payments by bringing that transaction fee down. Instead of making Bitcoin the jack of all trades, why not have multiple cryptocurrencies that each excel in their own areas? Leave Bitcoin exactly as is, and invest money and time into establishing a micropayment currency, a smart contract currency, etc...

Just some food for though.
Johnny


tl;dr
Why try and make Bitcoin do everything instead of having an ecosystem of specialized currencies?

I personally agree with this, but the problem has to do with human nature, if you have a good product you want as much people using it and for that you need to attract more people, if bitcoin becomes a store of value then the average person is not going to use bitcoin and instead opt for a different altcoin which would mean bitcoin will not reach as high of a price.

[johnny_day]

I personally agree with this, but the problem has to do with human nature, if you have a good product you want as much people using it and for that you need to attract more people, if bitcoin becomes a store of value then the average person is not going to use bitcoin and instead opt for a different altcoin which would men bitcoin will not reach as high of a price.

The average person shouldn't have to make a decision on which currencies to use and when. All of that can happen behind the scenes, can't it?

[btcdevil]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and move me if this is the wrong board, but in my opinion we should not focus on how to make Bitcoin do everything. Right now Bitcoin works well as a store of value, digital gold if you will. A $1 transaction fee means nothing to a $1,000,000 transaction. It does however severely cripple smaller payments, something that a cryptocurrency could be very good at.

Now it is my understanding that the point of SegWit/BU is to allow Bitcoin to be used for smaller payments by bringing that transaction fee down. Instead of making Bitcoin the jack of all trades, why not have multiple cryptocurrencies that each excel in their own areas? Leave Bitcoin exactly as is, and invest money and time into establishing a micropayment currency, a smart contract currency, etc...

Just some food for though.
Johnny


tl;dr
Why try and make Bitcoin do everything instead of having an ecosystem of specialized currencies?

What you are trying to say is not worth able as if leaving bitcoins and other crypto currencies do other works then the value of bitcoin will decrease because as all coins are valued in bitcoins and Bitcoins is the main coin for all. Why do you need other coins for each work which will make more complicated work to store. Even then their are so many other coins which are doing their project on their own work.

[warwar]

If there will be only one cryptocurrency and bitcoin will be alone even how bitcoin is so popular and rich now it will not stand alone and will drop price.All for one and one for all motto at cryptocurrency.

[animalroam]

There may be different currencies in the future, but there doesn't need to be if one currency can get them all. I guess you can say Bitcoin is gold in that it is expensive to transact, but if there are more efficient ways of transacting coins like LN, then why not use them?

[ResistantLaw]

I mean who knows, there's so many coins that it is possible if any of them have any real success then they might have their certain market.

For example people who need complete privacy, there's Monero(XMR).

And take something like Potcoin, sounds kinda dumb and I wouldn't expect it to have a real potential, but they said they have been contacted by shops in Canada to use it. So maybe Potcoin will become the cypto for all the weed shops or some shit.

[johnny_day]

I mean who knows, there's so many coins that it is possible if any of them have any real success then they might have their certain market.

For example people who need complete privacy, there's Monero(XMR).

And take something like Potcoin, sounds kinda dumb and I wouldn't expect it to have a real potential, but they said they have been contacted by shops in Canada to use it. So maybe Potcoin will become the cypto for all the weed shops or some shit.

What if a currency nails the $1-$1000 payment range? The "splitting the cost of an uber" use cases. Is it possible that this same currency could perfect the $10,000+ transactions?

[bitbob82]

If there will be only one cryptocurrency and bitcoin will be alone even how bitcoin is so popular and rich now it will not stand alone and will drop price.All for one and one for all motto at cryptocurrency.

just like fiat as there are different currencies for every country, in such way there will also be different online digital currencies but bitcoin will the main crypto currency ans most of the people will be depending on it for online as well as for online shopping.

[KennyR]

This has always been my opinion - that there are many different financial niches, and there will ultimately be highly optimized cryptocurrencies for each one. I used to think there would be 4 or 5 major cryptos, now I think the number of "successful" ones will ultimately range into the hundreds. Which is to say, there are still a ton more on Coinmarketcap than we really need.... but the competition is good in the long run. :-)

Each country has got its own traditional currency. Same way based upon the value transfer protocol financial institutions and developers come with different cryptocurrencies with difference in the features. So among the tons of coins that get existed very few sustain long and continue to serve the people around. Only one cryptocurrency won't make sense as the compatibility vary with respect to time, only the competence make things better.