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.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

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.

What makes Bitcoin worth it for my savings? That it increases in value.

Will it increase in value if there is no demand for it? No.

What gives it demans? Utility.

I don't mind buying my groceries using LettuceCoin but what if it takes me 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? Do you think I will keep very much in Bitcoin or do you think it would have lost its utility for me?

[johnny_day]

What makes Bitcoin worth it for my savings? That it increases in value.

Will it increase in value if there is no demand for it? No.

What gives it demans? Utility.

I don't mind buying my groceries using LettuceCoin but what if it takes me 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? Do you think I will keep very much in Bitcoin or do you think it would have lost its utility for me?

Why would it take 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? All of that can happen instantaneously as far as the user is concerned.

[dinofelis]

What makes Bitcoin worth it for my savings? That it increases in value.

Now, really think deep about this.  Suppose that most adoption of bitcoin comes from people thinking like that (which is probably the case).  That means that Joe is only to go and buy bitcoin, if he expects it to rise in price.  By doing so, he made it rise in price: someone who bought it at a lower price is going to sell it to him, right ?  So Joe is counting, essentially, on finding Bill, who will also buy it from him at a higher price, right ?   (that's what it means "increasing in value": finding people willing to buy it at a higher price than the one you bought it at").  Etc....

In this game, people come to bitcoin, because they think they will end up finding someone who will buy it at a higher price.  It is called "a greater-fool game".  You are a greater fool than the one you're buying from, and you do this because you think you will find a still greater fool.

Now, this has a fundamental problem to it: there's only a finite number of fools on the planet.  What is going to happen when the last layer of fools sees that there's not a "layer after them" ?

If the main motive of acquiring an asset is that you think you will be able to sell it at a higher price than you buy it, and if there is no other value-generating mechanism, this is the very definition of a greater-fool game, a bubble.  These are the mechanisms behind speculative bubbles, pyramid games and Ponzi schemes.   Which doesn't mean that you cannot make a lot of money from it when you're in and especially out in time.  All gain in such a system is financed by the "last layer of fools".  So simply don't be part of the last layer.

I don't mind buying my groceries using LettuceCoin but what if it takes me 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? Do you think I will keep very much in Bitcoin or do you think it would have lost its utility for me?

At least, with lettucecoin, you will get groceries

In any case, a single block chain cannot scale to the level of all transactions for all vegetables in the world.  The idea that Sven, in Sweden, must acquire, and process, the buying of a salad by Joe in Australia 7 years ago in order for Sven to be able to process his monetary asset to be able to buy some petrol for his car, is simply crazy.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

What makes Bitcoin worth it for my savings? That it increases in value.

Will it increase in value if there is no demand for it? No.

What gives it demans? Utility.

I don't mind buying my groceries using LettuceCoin but what if it takes me 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? Do you think I will keep very much in Bitcoin or do you think it would have lost its utility for me?

Why would it take 3 days to convert bitcoin to LettuceCoin? All of that can happen instantaneously as far as the user is concerned.

Not if there isn't room in the blockchain for the TX to confirm.

[dinofelis]

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.

I don't see necessarily a problem with 5000 coins.  It depends on how they are linked together (through distributed exchanges).  The lightning network can abstractly be seen as "as many coins as there are payment channels" in a certain way, where the "coins" are virtual block chains you build with the successive instructions on the payment channel.  Coins that "start out" when the channel is set up, and "die" when the channel is settled.  They get their value by using a collateral (the bitcoins engaged).  They die when they release the collateral. 
In the LN, all the "new coins" are of the same type, defined in the same way with a uniform (centralized ?) protocol.  But you can see "small coins" as totally anarchistic versions of this, where every other coin has other principles, engages another collateral (another coin, maybe bitcoin, maybe something else) on some distributed exchanges, and can release to *other* coins on these exchanges.

To pay for something "far away in coin space", you'd have to hop over several exchanges, like in the LN, you hop over several payment channels to reach destination.  But at least, contrary to the LN, things wouldn't be frozen in, uniform, ... Yes, there would be a need for some "standards" linking them.  But like in the technology world, the standards serve to interface different systems, but at least, systems of different types, with different technology and features, and innovation is possible.  The internet has standards, but the things connected to internet are of different nature, and evolve.  Bitcoin's tech is getting old now.  It can still serve as a kind of backbone, reserve currency in a way.  But it will never be able to handle all commerce all over the world.  Its monetary model is also problematic and it will end up being totally centralized because of economies of scale. 

If we want a distributed system, we need constantly new tech, new coins, and competing systems.  Not a monopoly.

[Sundark]

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

One Coin to rule them all, One Coin to find them,
One Coin to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

And that, my friend, is why bitcoin was created.



Joking aside.

Isn't the situation you are talking about is happening right now? We have over 6000 altcoins, at least judging by ANN topics from the Altcoin section.
700 or so is listed on coinmarketcap and 100 coins are over $1 million marketcap. Still, most of them offer nothing interesting and are waste of time and effort.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

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

One Coin to rule them all, One Coin to find them,
One Coin to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

And that, my friend, is why bitcoin was created.



Joking aside.

Isn't the situation you are talking about is happening right now? We have over 6000 altcoins, at least judging by ANN topics from the Altcoin section.
700 or so is listed on coinmarketcap and 100 coins are over $1 million marketcap. Still, most of them offer nothing interesting and are waste of time and effort.

Most of them lack the hashing power that would be needed to withstand a sustained attack by a state level adversary wanting to re-write transaction history.

Mining power is extremely important. One of the drawbacks to promoting side-chains for the bulk of transactions is it removes the financial incentive to professionally mine, reducing the security provided by the hash power.

[dinofelis]

700 or so is listed on coinmarketcap and 100 coins are over $1 million marketcap. Still, most of them offer nothing interesting and are waste of time and effort.

I don't think they are a waste of time and effort.  Like in all innovative tech, most of what you do, fails.  But without all the failures, the good ideas wouldn't emerge either.  Thinking that a monopoly works better than a free market, is somewhat strange for people that think "distributed, decentralized, trustless".  As of now, bitcoin is more or less holding a monopoly on crypto.  Its tech is getting old now.  There are many more sophisticated crypto ideas around, like ring signatures, zero knowledge proofs, smart contracts, proof of stake versions, directed graphs instead of chains, .... There are also experimentations with flexible block sizes...
Bitcoin starts looking like the state telephone company holding the monopoly over telephony, while mobile phones are being invented.

[dinofelis]

Most of them lack the hashing power that would be needed to withstand a sustained attack by a state level adversary wanting to re-write transaction history.

Mining power is extremely important. One of the drawbacks to promoting side-chains for the bulk of transactions is it removes the financial incentive to professionally mine, reducing the security provided by the hash power.

You are thinking from a pure Proof of Work viewpoint.  Maybe proof of work alone is not a good idea, because its security is limited by the financial power and incentive of its adversaries.  That is good enough to stop your local hacker from messing with it, but it won't stop the Chinese government, if one day it really gets pissed at bitcoin, from killing if it throws a few billion dollars at it.

On the other hand, small chains don't need big protection, because there's not much at stake ; and there are other cryptographical protections possible.  What is good with proof of work, is the initial distribution of the emitted coin, and the fact that seigniorage is burned.

My idea of many small crypto currencies in which people don't "invest" but just use to sell and buy goods and hence for which the market cap is low, and of which it is not a big drama if it dies, is exactly the fact that there's not much incentive to destroy it, because there's not much at stake.   The goal being to *pay* people, not to *store value*.   If a currency exists, I buy some coins (with another currency of course), with those coins, I buy what I want to buy, and that's it, I don't care much about the future of that coin: it did for me what it had to do.  If that coin gets destroyed by the Chinese government (why would they ?), I don't care.  Tomorrow, there's another coin, I buy some, I pay the stuff I want to obtain with it, and that's it, again.

That's how I use bitcoin.  Well, how I used bitcoin.  I bought some bitcoin when I wanted to buy stuff on the internet with it.  What happens with bitcoin after that, doesn't really matter.  If the merchants would accept monero, I'd pay in monero.  Or in Litecoin.  Or whatever.  The day they destroy bitcoin, I wouldn't care.  There are other coins.  And if those get destroyed too, no problem.  There are still other coins, and we can make new ones.

That's my idea of decentralized.  Not a single monopoly.

[Sled]

I don't think that it is good for bitcoin to be just the only one cryptocurrency in the market because we can't deny that the altcoins is one of the factor why other people come into bitcoin because they want to trade another kind of cryptocurrency and that is altcoin. So if there is no altcoins or back up coins other than bitcoin then the market users will be few because they can't just stick with bitcoin.

[Xester]

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?

One possible solution for this problem is to require each country to make their own local cryptocurrency. Those national cryptocurrencies will be exchanged to bitcoin to purchase items abroad but local transactions will make use of local crytpcurrency. In this way the volume of transactions using bitcoin will be lessened making the transactions much faster and with lower fees.

[DomainMagnate]

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?

Bitcoin will lose its value if it is not used as currency as well.Also creating new currency at will make them valuable also and people will start holding it as well

[talkbitcoin]

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?

you have some major mistakes. in my opinion.
- bitcoin was never supposed to be a store of value. it was always meant to be a digital cash, and i believe this is one of the reasons it is being adopted. if it becomes just an investment that means we are trading numbers on our screen and that is pointless in my opinion.

- also the biggest mistake you made is that you are assuming it is not possible with bitcoin. but it is! if scaling was something that was 100% impossible then you were right we should have thought about alternatives but it is possible and everything was fined a year ago and before that. things are messy these days only. and i hope we again see fine days after we are past this period.

[iqlimasyadiqa]

in the future maybe there will only be a few digital currency in the world. this time I think too many existing digital currency.
I believe the next few years the digital currency will grow very well.

[chixka000]

For now since crypt curriency is not yet widely adopted so it is better if we focus on one(bitcoin to be specific). However i  am not telling as well that we should disregard alt cryptos because i also believe that they are part of the development but we should not also think for now to let them be on the higjer place than btc has right now

[dinofelis]

you have some major mistakes. in my opinion.
- bitcoin was never supposed to be a store of value. it was always meant to be a digital cash, and i believe this is one of the reasons it is being adopted. if it becomes just an investment that means we are trading numbers on our screen and that is pointless in my opinion.

Then bitcoin was not well designed for this task.   No single block chain can do that ; but moreover, then there shouldn't have been a finite number of bitcoins, there shouldn't have been block reward halvings, there shouldn't have been any block size limits.  All these things lead you to a purely speculative asset.  People don't pay groceries with paintings of Picasso of which there are only a finite number ever.  And with 2-3 transactions at most per second, transactions becoming a finite resource, that's not possible either for a fluid currency.

Bitcoin has *all the right aspects* to become a very expensive reserve currency kept in vaults and only transacted in very big amounts.

[shield132]

Why won't we focuse bitcoin on that? We need something trusted and unique and bitcoin is that. Well, wealthy competition is always good and we hav ability of that but nowdays mostly altcoins can't to offer us such services and they are doing hard forks, lets take etherium for example. Also another factor is that there are many big datacenteres, exchangers and there is much, really much invested in bitcoins and everyone knows that bitcoin is really most trusted coin.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

you have some major mistakes. in my opinion.
- bitcoin was never supposed to be a store of value. it was always meant to be a digital cash, and i believe this is one of the reasons it is being adopted. if it becomes just an investment that means we are trading numbers on our screen and that is pointless in my opinion.

Then bitcoin was not well designed for this task.   No single block chain can do that ; but moreover, then there shouldn't have been a finite number of bitcoins, there shouldn't have been block reward halvings, there shouldn't have been any block size limits.  All these things lead you to a purely speculative asset.  People don't pay groceries with paintings of Picasso of which there are only a finite number ever.  And with 2-3 transactions at most per second, transactions becoming a finite resource, that's not possible either for a fluid currency.

Bitcoin has *all the right aspects* to become a very expensive reserve currency kept in vaults and only transacted in very big amounts.

21M bitcoins is a lot of bitcoins when you can divide them down into mBTC, uBTC, and Satoshis.

21M is plenty to use for a payment system - especially since the code was released open source making it easy for anyone to create a new crypto-currency if bitcoins did become too scarce.

I do not think Satoshi ever intended Bitcoin to be the only implementation. In fact I seem to remember that he asked for others, resulting in namecoin, before he went on walkabout.

Creating the digital currency everyone in the world would use was not his goal.

[dinofelis]

21M bitcoins is a lot of bitcoins when you can divide them down into mBTC, uBTC, and Satoshis.

Ah, the point is not that "there wouldn't be enough of them".  The point is that if you use a deflationary currency, you won't.  You'll obtain a collectible that will be hodled and that will rise spectacularly in price, and which mainly becomes a speculative asset.

I do not think Satoshi ever intended Bitcoin to be the only implementation. In fact I seem to remember that he asked for others, resulting in namecoin, before he went on walkabout.

As a first beta project it was brilliant.  And it IS still brilliant, but it is not what you think it is.  It is "gold".  Gold is not a currency.  It is kept in institutional vaults, its transactions are expensive with armored trucks and so on.  And it is mainly a speculative good.  It is not just a store of value, people see it as a speculative investment "that will rise".  Bitcoin has all the aspects of gold.  Not those of a currency.  Although of course, long ago, gold was used as a currency, until it was kept in vaults, it became expensive to handle and not very practical.  So people built fiat systems on top of it.  

Yes, some amateurs have some physical gold in their houses.  And they dare not move it.  But most gold is in vaults of central banks, and other big players.  Like bitcoin soon will be.

This is why there won't come a solution to the full blocks.  And why it is not needed either.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

21M bitcoins is a lot of bitcoins when you can divide them down into mBTC, uBTC, and Satoshis.

Ah, the point is not that "there wouldn't be enough of them".  The point is that if you use a deflationary currency, you won't.  You'll obtain a collectible that will be hodled and that will rise spectacularly in price, and which mainly becomes a speculative asset.

The problem is if you create too many, you get inflation.

The utility of digital currency for some may be the deflationary nature, but really only for those who have excess income.

For many of us, the utility is the ability to spend without tracking or over-sight of the corporate financial sector,

I don't need my bank knowing what I spend my money on. I don't need my bank denying a charge because they think it doesn't fit my profile of spending. I don't need my bank putting a 24-hour hold on funds I legitimately received. I don't need the IRS freezing my account.

Growing up, my dad took a second job as a LISP contractor and made some real bank. Unfortunately he did his own taxes and screwed up. Yup - our tax laws are so complex a LISP programmer has trouble figuring them out.

The IRS decided to audit and then suddenly froze all of his accounts, and after 9 months of haggling realized they also had made a mistake - Yup - our tax laws are so complex that our own IRS has trouble figuring them out - and realized that while Dad had underpaid them, it was not nearly the magnitude they had thought.

But for those nine months, we were really poor because all the assets were frozen - excess assets frozen.

Bitcoin, the IRS may be able to take my home but they can't take my accounts.

That's the value it has for me, it is free from government and banking tyranny and that is why I would rather spend bitcoin than use a fiat bank card.

With respect to bitcoin being deflationary, it is only deflationary if demand grows faster than supply. Other crypto-currencies have the potential to balance that out.

The problem is the majority of alternate crypto-currencies so far have been get rich schemes without developers qualified. However in the wake of bitcoin, more and more people are understanding block-chain technology and real alternatives to take some of the bitcoin demand will appear. Possibly even a fork of Bitcoin itself if the BU forks but blockstream loyalists keep using the 1MB chain.

[ethereumhunter]

one crypto currency is possible if there is all country and all people is using in the same time and not depend on one currency and the most important is the internet connection. because if we only do it with offline, then its really hard to do, but with internet connection everything become possible. and for now, i think not all country have the same internet connection and this is the big problem for one community if they want to make one crypto currency. but i think it would be happen in future and we can not see this is really happen because we do not live in that future.

[bitjoin]

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

Nobody is in control so thats why we get a ton of alts created.  As regards BTC i think its good to have many options with the currency, you dont have to use them.  It has more value because it has potential to do so much in the future.

[romero121]

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

Nobody is in control so thats why we get a ton of alts created.  As regards BTC i think its good to have many options with the currency, you dont have to use them.  It has more value because it has potential to do so much in the future.

Blockchain technology makes innovation in several sectors. So based on the same technology several ICO projects evolve around and this in turn gets value and moves into circulation as a store of value. These day countries try to make their own fiat get digital form. This too is an reason for the existence of lots of digital currencies.

[stomachgrowls]

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

Nobody is in control so thats why we get a ton of alts created.  As regards BTC i think its good to have many options with the currency, you dont have to use them.  It has more value because it has potential to do so much in the future.

Blockchain technology makes innovation in several sectors. So based on the same technology several ICO projects evolve around and this in turn gets value and moves into circulation as a store of value. These day countries try to make their own fiat get digital form. This too is an reason for the existence of lots of digital currencies.

Just as expected since because the existence of bitcoin they will surely generate their own idea on creating one since people do really love to copy innovations and the results there are lots of cryptos and soon e-currency that would use blockchain technology which is really normal to happen.

[micher143]

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

Nobody is in control so thats why we get a ton of alts created.  As regards BTC i think its good to have many options with the currency, you dont have to use them.  It has more value because it has potential to do so much in the future.

Blockchain technology makes innovation in several sectors. So based on the same technology several ICO projects evolve around and this in turn gets value and moves into circulation as a store of value. These day countries try to make their own fiat get digital form. This too is an reason for the existence of lots of digital currencies.

Just as expected since because the existence of bitcoin they will surely generate their own idea on creating one since people do really love to copy innovations and the results there are lots of cryptos and soon e-currency that would use blockchain technology which is really normal to happen.

Just imagine if the bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency there will be no trading at all the buy and sell of bitcoin is the only one will exist. I think the new coins introduced to us are normal because of bitcoin idea to people they are trying to imitate the bitcoin and make some earning. For me that is good to because of that trading of altcoins exist.

[buwaytress]

I think it isn't so much that "we" are trying to make bitcoin "do everything". It just so happens that it is as you say, the first mover, and has the most structured or at least the most tangible development people on board.

There are certainly others who advocate for different things and direction, we see this expressed as some alts and others wanting bitcoin to split.

All in all, the deliberation behind bitcoin that gets more complex has to be good for all involved. The guy on the ground (like me) can only comment from the byline but it looks good from here!

[Rinder]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

[Ayers]

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?

other altcoin are not better at micro transaction than bitcoin, and what is the point of them if they can't do what bitcoin is bad at? also how i'm supposed to use other altcoin, if none of them are accepted by any big merchants? any merchants will never accept any alt, they are too damn unstable for them, it's a very risky business

[bitbob82]

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

Nobody is in control so thats why we get a ton of alts created.  As regards BTC i think its good to have many options with the currency, you dont have to use them.  It has more value because it has potential to do so much in the future.

Blockchain technology makes innovation in several sectors. So based on the same technology several ICO projects evolve around and this in turn gets value and moves into circulation as a store of value. These day countries try to make their own fiat get digital form. This too is an reason for the existence of lots of digital currencies.

Just as expected since because the existence of bitcoin they will surely generate their own idea on creating one since people do really love to copy innovations and the results there are lots of cryptos and soon e-currency that would use blockchain technology which is really normal to happen.

Just imagine if the bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency there will be no trading at all the buy and sell of bitcoin is the only one will exist. I think the new coins introduced to us are normal because of bitcoin idea to people they are trying to imitate the bitcoin and make some earning. For me that is good to because of that trading of altcoins exist.

but i think bitcoin is already the only famous currency of the world and becoming more and more popular. i think there is not any other currency that can compete with bitcoin. i do not thing that there is any other crypto currency that people are using for different purposes.

[calkob]

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 think you are right in a way,  however when sidechains come along and the likes of tumblebit and mimbelwimble we wont need to use the likes of zcash and monero.  especially considering that bitcoin has a massive network effect.

[South Park]

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. :-)

Correct, it is a mistake to try to use a tool for every single job, it may be a great tool but sometimes you need another tool to solve the job, we would not use a hammer to try to open a smartphone, right? So different cryptos need to focus on different things and we will use them as we need them.

[bitllionaire]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

yes there is no doubt about this. that bitcoin is now becoming one of the most popular currency of the world. people are now giving preference to online currency, therefore they have the only option to use bitcoin as it is one of the best crypto currency, although there ar so many other currencies but still bitcoin is one of the best online currency.

[xuan87]

I also think like that, but for now crypto currencies still not too famous, if we split the crypto into category it will weakened all the crypto and eventually will die, we need to made one strong foundation which is bitcoin and in the end if the society needed then we will have specialized crypto, crypto is a freedom currency as long as there are many people want request then there will be special alt coin created

[Amph]

you have some major mistakes. in my opinion.
- bitcoin was never supposed to be a store of value. it was always meant to be a digital cash, and i believe this is one of the reasons it is being adopted. if it becomes just an investment that means we are trading numbers on our screen and that is pointless in my opinion.

Then bitcoin was not well designed for this task.   No single block chain can do that ; but moreover, then there shouldn't have been a finite number of bitcoins, there shouldn't have been block reward halvings, there shouldn't have been any block size limits.  All these things lead you to a purely speculative asset.  People don't pay groceries with paintings of Picasso of which there are only a finite number ever.  And with 2-3 transactions at most per second, transactions becoming a finite resource, that's not possible either for a fluid currency.

Bitcoin has *all the right aspects* to become a very expensive reserve currency kept in vaults and only transacted in very big amounts.

21M bitcoins is a lot of bitcoins when you can divide them down into mBTC, uBTC, and Satoshis.

21M is plenty to use for a payment system - especially since the code was released open source making it easy for anyone to create a new crypto-currency if bitcoins did become too scarce.

I do not think Satoshi ever intended Bitcoin to be the only implementation. In fact I seem to remember that he asked for others, resulting in namecoin, before he went on walkabout.

Creating the digital currency everyone in the world would use was not his goal.

the first point is true only if bitcoin value is very high that it's submultiples would have a decent value worth to be considered

by creating a new crypto you mean forking or altcoin? the first will not happen, the second is already there...

[ReLieD]

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 guess you are mistaken. There are many other crypto currencies but they are not as good as bitcoin.
And moreover bitcoin is the number one crypto currency so other people do not look upon other currencies as such.
Also some people invest in other crypto currency thinking that they will also become as famous as bitcoin and the people can make profit that way.

[asuryan180]

That's not true,of course BTC is the most popular and used crypto and there are reasons for this,it just has established as the most reliable and trustworthy one,and the oldest one,however the market is the same for all coins so there aren't any restrictions on the other cryptos.

[vrm86]

First of all we need to define what 'specialization' means. Many newly launched altcoin have target group that the coin is addressed to (e.g. gamers, women, drug dealers , taxi drivers - whatever), however each time it looks like an weak excuse to perform pump&dump. In fact, there are some altocoins with decent marketcap at the moment, that offer faster transaction speed than BTC and can be used as alternative (ETH, XMR...). The last point is, that success of any coin is not a decision made by anyone, but market will decide if it needs that or not.  

[doomistake]

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?

It is not that we are focusing on bitcoin and not interested on the other Altcoins, it is just that bitcoin is the only coin that is worth of our time to spend with because of its value, but we are also trading other Altcoins which have good value in the market, so that, we could have huge profit from it, because it is hard to buy Altcoins which price is so low, because there is no one using it anymore.

But since Trading is a long term business, and you have to wait for the right time to buy and sell your coins, that is why, for the meantime, we are focusing on earning bitcoin other than earning money by trading Altcoins.

[HaXX0R1337]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

I am not sure how other crypto currencies are forcing the bitcoin developers to keep on upgrading the system because i have not seen any significant changes for the past two years since i am into it and how come you say that they are upgrading .Now people have more options as there are different coins which have a faster transaction time than bitcoin and with the ever increasing transaction fees the developers will be forced atleast now to make some changes.

[Xester]

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?

It is not that we are focusing on bitcoin and not interested on the other Altcoins, it is just that bitcoin is the only coin that is worth of our time to spend with because of its value, but we are also trading other Altcoins which have good value in the market, so that, we could have huge profit from it, because it is hard to buy Altcoins which price is so low, because there is no one using it anymore.

But since Trading is a long term business, and you have to wait for the right time to buy and sell your coins, that is why, for the meantime, we are focusing on earning bitcoin other than earning money by trading Altcoins.

Long term trading is the best kind of trading. And why is it by just having a capital of 1$ you can earn 1000 dollars up to 3k$. The secrets is long term trading, and that is buying the altcoins at a very low price then sell it on a much higher price lets say 100x to 1000x higher to the price you bought it. But we must also take note to check whether the coins has potential or not otherwise our satoshis will turn into waste.

[ivanst776]

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

One of the reason is the competition where more cryptocurrencies are created (invented) every week or month and we see that every altcoin is having only few differences that could make them better than bitcoin and better than other altcoins.

To be only 1 cryptocurrency is not fair like we don't like to use only 1 currency all around the world because the price could be manipulated from the main institutions or if the main people who produce the cash could print more cash then the value of that currency could drop a lot

And it could affect the whole world economy which is not good, regarding to this there are many reasons why there are so many currencies and cryptocurrencies and I personally wouldn't like the only bitcoin without other altcoins which help the bitcoin too to have the actual price and value because many people have learnt bitcoin through altcoins.

[bitllionaire]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

to me i think in present time thousands of crypt currencies are there, but bitcoin is the number one crypto currency, i think future there will also present thousands of crypto currencies but still the number one currency will be bitcoin. actually the number of bitcoin users are increasing as people are no now putting more and more trust on bitcoin. government are now also thinking about to make bitcoin as legal currency of the world.

[markyminer]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

to me i think in present time thousands of crypt currencies are there, but bitcoin is the number one crypto currency, i think future there will also present thousands of crypto currencies but still the number one currency will be bitcoin.

yes that is very right to say that bitcoin is the number one crypto currency and will remain as number one currency in future also, because the mindset of people have now changed to bitcoin and therefore they are using bitcoin for payment method.

[Shady]

From what it looks like by what you're saying other cryptocurrencies are ignored with full emphasis on Bitcoin, but in reality the connections of alt-coin economies and BTC adapt the exchange of continued use of them all.

Many cryptocurrencies are region based or enable based on similarities in technologies easing multiple coins into one web service / wallet.

The principle held holds strong value for all coins involved, eventually leading to an index across them all.

[South Park]

one crypto currency is possible if there is all country and all people is using in the same time and not depend on one currency and the most important is the internet connection. because if we only do it with offline, then its really hard to do, but with internet connection everything become possible. and for now, i think not all country have the same internet connection and this is the big problem for one community if they want to make one crypto currency. but i think it would be happen in future and we can not see this is really happen because we do not live in that future.

One crypto currencies for the whole world sounds very similar to one fiat for the whole world and that is simply not possible, different countries and different people have different needs, for example bitcoins average fee was half a dollar a few days ago, that may not be much for a person in the first world but for a person in the third world that fee is several hours of work.

[Monnt]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

to me i think in present time thousands of crypt currencies are there, but bitcoin is the number one crypto currency, i think future there will also present thousands of crypto currencies but still the number one currency will be bitcoin. actually the number of bitcoin users are increasing as people are no now putting more and more trust on bitcoin. government are now also thinking about to make bitcoin as legal currency of the world.

Bitcoin has been and will forever be the number one cryptocurrency out there, because it has the attention of many people and it is the highest in terms of price and investments, and I don’t think that is going to change any time soon even if the price falls down to $100, people will still believe in bitcoin.

[savioroshan]

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?

Who told there is only one cryptocurrency? There are so many altcoins developed for different areas. You can see now adzcoin, flash coin, prcoin etc. I understood that op is actually encouraging bitcoin community to use altcoins instead of bitcoins. But actually people will prefer to have well established coins with them .They dont want to get scammed. Bitcoin is already a well established coin.Thats why people still prefer bitcoin for everything.

[carlerha]

one crypto currency is possible if there is all country and all people is using in the same time and not depend on one currency and the most important is the internet connection. because if we only do it with offline, then its really hard to do, but with internet connection everything become possible. and for now, i think not all country have the same internet connection and this is the big problem for one community if they want to make one crypto currency. but i think it would be happen in future and we can not see this is really happen because we do not live in that future.

One crypto currencies for the whole world sounds very similar to one fiat for the whole world and that is simply not possible, different countries and different people have different needs, for example bitcoins average fee was half a dollar a few days ago, that may not be much for a person in the first world but for a person in the third world that fee is several hours of work.

i personally do not think that there will be only one crypto currency as there are already a lot of crpto currencies but still bitcoin will the the world number one currency.

[South Park]

We all know that alcoins are forcing bitcoin to keep upgrading and getting better, the problems that bitcoin is facing now if just one single coin it would had killed it or already had a solution. Altcoins are getting more and more interest over bitcoin, due to the easy to use and low and instant transactions, this is what crypto system need.

to me i think in present time thousands of crypt currencies are there, but bitcoin is the number one crypto currency, i think future there will also present thousands of crypto currencies but still the number one currency will be bitcoin. actually the number of bitcoin users are increasing as people are no now putting more and more trust on bitcoin. government are now also thinking about to make bitcoin as legal currency of the world.

Bitcoin does not need to lose its status as the first crypto currency, but to think, like some people do, that bitcoin is going to be the only cryptocurrency worth anything is a mistake, there are going to be other alts that are going to be useful for the development of our community.

[xskl0]

Bitcoin can be a store of value and  a currency choose just one function is not needed.