How many major cryptocurrencies do you think the world has room for?

[AusKipper]

I am sure this is not the first time this question has been asked but I cant find a closely related thread and I searched a few different times.

Anyway, its a simple enough questions. Keep in mind the question is "how many" not "what coins".

I know theres plenty of bitcoin maximalists out there that think theres room for only one coin.

Personally, I could see there being room for a few:

Bitcoin - It was first, and I think it will always have users
One primary transaction coin - Coin with a high transaction rate (transactions per second) and low fees.
A privacy focused coin or two
I think some countries may decide to make their national currency a crypto, but, not any time soon, and they will almost certainly stuff it up (make the fees too high and all the fees go to their own wallet or something silly)
Maybe a few specialty coins, (ie, Storj for storage), however, I think its more likely such services would be provided and paid for using an already existing currency focused coin, but the service could use their own tokens for the purpose of allocation ratios for that currency coin.

So, long story short I think:

4 - 6 coins + national crypto's if any

I think once it has become "obvious" what coin is going to be the primary transaction coin most of the alts will die out (i know they don't really disappear, but their market cap will drop to 1% or something of the main coin)

[jacaf01]

I think this is a question for the market to decide, we all know we are in a free market economy and anyone is free to create his own coin. I still have my reservation on National cryptocurrency, if Central banks get this wrong especially China, it may be the start of their economy collapse.

[AusKipper]

I think this is a question for the market to decide, we all know we are in a free market economy and anyone is free to create his own coin. I still have my reservation on National cryptocurrency, if Central banks get this wrong especially China, it may be the start of their economy collapse.

Of course the market is going to decide the answer, I certainly wasn't suggesting we somehow attempt to limited the number of coins

I am just curious as to other peoples opinions as to what they think that market decision will be.

I fully believe that if a country attempts to create a new crypto currency for their national currency they will stuff it up and it will fail as well, but I think its plausible one may try.

I think it would work well if done right, but I just know they wouldn't be able to help themselves but do something silly like keep themselves in control of the coin emission rate, add high transfer fees that go not to the miners, but to their own national wallet (for "taxes" to "maintain the system" of course... not because of greed), add in some kind of "centralization" to allow them to confiscate wallets and send the contents to their own national wallet (because, terrorists) and things like that. Im sure one or more of those would get in.

[AusKipper]

infinity

Given that there are about 200 countries in the world, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if we somehow managed to get over 250 major cryptos at the same time.

[dinofelis]

I would go for 10 000 coins or more.

But the notion of "coin" is maybe different in my mind: it means something like "block chain", that is: suite of recorded transactions.  I would count each payment channel on a lightning network as a coin in that respect.  You start a coin by opening a channel and giving it value with a bitcoin collateral.  You end up destroying the coin, and releasing the collateral.

[imtav]

infinity

Given that there are about 200 countries in the world, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if we somehow managed to get over 250 major cryptos at the same time.

What does number of countries have to do with number of crypto currencies?  There are 6500 languages actively spoken in today's world.  Does that impact crypto development?

[dinofelis]

infinity

I would rather argue for infinity minus one

[TravelMug]

I am sure this is not the first time this question has been asked but I cant find a closely related thread and I searched a few different times.

Anyway, its a simple enough questions. Keep in mind the question is "how many" not "what coins".

I know theres plenty of bitcoin maximalists out there that think theres room for only one coin.

Personally, I could see there being room for a few:

Bitcoin - It was first, and I think it will always have users
One primary transaction coin - Coin with a high transaction rate (transactions per second) and low fees.
A privacy focused coin or two
I think some countries may decide to make their national currency a crypto, but, not any time soon, and they will almost certainly stuff it up (make the fees too high and all the fees go to their own wallet or something silly)
Maybe a few specialty coins, (ie, Storj for storage), however, I think its more likely such services would be provided and paid for using an already existing currency focused coin, but the service could use their own tokens for the purpose of allocation ratios for that currency coin.

So, long story short I think:

4 - 6 coins + national crypto's if any

I think once it has become "obvious" what coin is going to be the primary transaction coin most of the alts will die out (i know they don't really disappear, but their market cap will drop to 1% or something of the main coin)

I estimated it to be like 10 perhaps. There is a lot of alt coins right now, but I think for trading online markets maybe 1000 but it should be depended on the market cap. And I think if a country of nation has its own crypto-currency, for purpose of like establishing sovereignty or patriotism should fail in the long run, they can still use bitcoin.

so 10 + national crypto (if it fail go back to bitcoin) for me.

[kolap]

I am sure this is not the first time this question has been asked but I cant find a closely related thread and I searched a few different times.

Anyway, its a simple enough questions. Keep in mind the question is "how many" not "what coins".

I know theres plenty of bitcoin maximalists out there that think theres room for only one coin.

Personally, I could see there being room for a few:

Bitcoin - It was first, and I think it will always have users
One primary transaction coin - Coin with a high transaction rate (transactions per second) and low fees.
A privacy focused coin or two
I think some countries may decide to make their national currency a crypto, but, not any time soon, and they will almost certainly stuff it up (make the fees too high and all the fees go to their own wallet or something silly)
Maybe a few specialty coins, (ie, Storj for storage), however, I think its more likely such services would be provided and paid for using an already existing currency focused coin, but the service could use their own tokens for the purpose of allocation ratios for that currency coin.

So, long story short I think:

4 - 6 coins + national crypto's if any

I think once it has become "obvious" what coin is going to be the primary transaction coin most of the alts will die out (i know they don't really disappear, but their market cap will drop to 1% or something of the main coin)

No limit and it will never end.

[AusKipper]

And I think if a country of nation has its own crypto-currency, for purpose of like establishing sovereignty or patriotism should fail in the long run, they can still use bitcoin.

Bitcoin will need a few improvements between now and then to be a national currency

Could possibly happen though i'm not technical enough to know what kind of transactions per second bitcoin could get itself to without compromising the coin.

[nemgun]

The more altcoins we have, the better it is, as long as they are legit. Any coin can turn to a major coin, it all depends on the management, development, philosophy.

If a developer wants to create a coin who will bring something new, like a new code, new language, new algo, new services, then his project will earn a decent amount of respect equal to the amount of work spent. A respected coin means it is a coin supported by a community, it means that a fraction of the crypto population want to use this coin for any reason, this creates a demand, it is not a demand for market but a demand for development, as long as the demand is satisfied, the market will grow, as long as the market grows, the value grows with it. This is the basic road for a legit project.

Regarding the ridiculous amount of scam/shit coins, we may end with 5-6 major coins only, and i would be sad if we can't provide more.

[NUFCrichard]

I can keep track of about 5 at the same time. 

In fiat currencies there are about 5 major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY) I would only expect about 5 crypto currencies to be very sucessful if crypto is adopted worldwide.

The hundreds that are around now are generally junk, and will remain so.

[wolfracer]

I think there could be a limited amount of cryptocurrencies and people would still be investing in more than those just because they want to feel superior to others when saying that they have other kind of cryptocurrencies even though they worth nothing...

[ipanks]

i am not sure about this as we can see there will be many more of altcoin that will be release and maybe we can see more than 700 altcoin as this is list in the coinmarketcap for now. because there are maybe many people wants to create their own coins and attract the investor to come with them and make the journey success like other coins.

[e-coinomist]

I can keep track of about 5 at the same time. 

In fiat currencies there are about 5 major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY) I would only expect about 5 crypto currencies to be very sucessful if crypto is adopted worldwide.

The hundreds that are around now are generally junk, and will remain so.

Sinologists could point out the cultural borders in between the CNY area and us, but BTC completely gapless bridget over into china. Could not even imagine how they would paint the BTC on silk paper. My bet: it's allready an official Hani.
By the way your list is lacking RUR, and there is that border line between the USD influenced culture sphere and the RUR area, and BTC bridged over that gap, too. No cold war remnances hindering it.
From these observances I would take "national currency" from that list, merely the technological differences are valued by market forces.

[kelsey]

this is a good question.

i think if they stay as merely over-hyped trading tokens then few thousand.

if we're to have proper usable p2p currency options i think 5-20 different types is ideal. if crypto does go mainstream as a proper usable currency then the pack will be thinned to that.

i think comparing it to how many fiat/national currencies is comparing apples to oranges. but people still can't get their head out of the fiat world.

[n691309]

infinity

I would rather argue for infinity minus one

Infinity minus one is still infinity (if you know the math well )

Personally, I could see there being room for a few:
Bitcoin - It was first, and I think it will always have users
One primary transaction coin - Coin with a high transaction rate (transactions per second) and low fees.

So, long story short I think:
4 - 6 coins + national crypto's if any

I think once it has become "obvious" what coin is going to be the primary transaction coin most of the alts will die out (i know they don't really disappear, but their market cap will drop to 1% or something of the main coin)

I think that there are enough space that everybody can experiment and create new altcoins as many as they want, the issue is that if they could have enough users to use that coin and how long will that project be running because we see how fast most of altcoins go from a high price to one satoshi or zero because they wanted only to pump and get richer to create then another altcoin and use the same old tricks.

[SHAWN-MIDWAYS]

I am sure this is not the first time this question has been asked but I cant find a closely related thread and I searched a few different times.

Anyway, its a simple enough questions. Keep in mind the question is "how many" not "what coins".

I know theres plenty of bitcoin maximalists out there that think theres room for only one coin.

Personally, I could see there being room for a few

You asked for major cryptocurrencies i would say 10 then the rest compete for recognition to be promoted to the big league, and those among the big 10 get relegated if the fail to perform.

4 - 6 coins + national crypto's if any

I think once it has become "obvious" what coin is going to be the primary transaction coin most of the alts will die out (i know they don't really disappear, but their market cap will drop to 1% or something of the main coin)

the whole idea of cryptocurrencies is to bring about decentralization and aid financial freedom, and having a national crypto would take away financial freedom people need and enjoy. Though adopting the idea of national cryptos will no doubt kill most atlcoins!

[fundyourself]

I can keep track of about 5 at the same time. 

In fiat currencies there are about 5 major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY) I would only expect about 5 crypto currencies to be very sucessful if crypto is adopted worldwide.

The hundreds that are around now are generally junk, and will remain so.

Agreed. The brain can only stored 7 working items in it's short term memory too, so probably less than 7

[nemgun]

I can keep track of about 5 at the same time. 

In fiat currencies there are about 5 major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY) I would only expect about 5 crypto currencies to be very sucessful if crypto is adopted worldwide.

The hundreds that are around now are generally junk, and will remain so.

Agreed. The brain can only stored 7 working items in it's short term memory too, so probably less than 7

I don't agree on that, and even if it was true any one can make simple scripts to keep track of their favorite currencies, i know that many developers and traders are doing it.

What would be these major currencies we are talking about ? BTC, LTC, ETH, XMR?, DASH?, ZCASH?

I know that at least the first three are one of them regardless of what people think about litecoin, they are still in the top 10, Dash can fall, their are not stable for now. ETH have been imposed as a major currency, but i think they still have to get ride of ETH's shady past relations with mafia. XMR, i don't really know what to think about it, it is a popular currency and may be considered like that. ZCASH, well, my personal though about this is that it is a scam or ponzy coin, and it may reveal to be one as it's outing happened recently.