there don't seem to be great Bitcoin alternatives

[Daniel91]

Many altcoins have tried to get close to bitcoin and become so popular and addopted but so far none of them hasn't achieved that value. This will be hard because I don't think there is much space for two or more very strong cryptocurrencies on the market. Maybe in the future but at the moment bitcoin will stay without serious competition.

I agree with you.
Bitcoin was first and most people learned about virtual currencies through bitcoin example.
Habit is also very important thing.
If you start with something, it's unlikely that you will to quickly change your mind and try something else.
Bitcoin also have very strong network and already a lot merchants accept it.
In my opinion, bitcoin have a lot advantages over other crypto currencies.
Of course, over time, it can change but right now bitcoin is no., 1.

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[mindrust]

Litecoin is technically way better than bitcoin but it lacks the name. It's only a copycode with better features just like any other out there. At least its not instamined/premined scam coin as far as i know and that's a plus. And its price is being around 4$ for ages. Some people even make fun of litecoin and name it as "4$ Coin" in the btc-e's trollbox. The bad thing about litecoin is its like that ltc devs abandoned it. No news, no advertisements of it, nothing. That's why its losing power.

Bitcoin always have some interesting news. Everyday. One day its the fork FUD, the other day its ETF decision, some other day some exchange gets hacked etc.

Nothing about litecoin. It's as stable&dead as my shoes.

[xuan87]

There is no coin that as great as bitcoin yet, all the alt coins in the market is not strong enough to replace bitcoin, the fame and the user is not enough yet to replace bitcoin and become number 1, for now alt coin is great for trading but for usage implementation still not really good , alt coin only can be used in gambling sites, there are no shop yet accepting alt coin as payment

[rickadone]

I count Litecoin as one of the most perspective among other altcoins. I heard many storyies about how people could increase their capitals with litecoin, the same way as how people got rich with bitcoin.

Litecoin can be considered as stable as bitcoin because of large community supporting it but they aren't getting any attention this days. They are good to hedge against bitcoin but for long term holding you may not earn much with it.

The Litecoin developers say that lite coins is an improved version of bitcoin, with much faster transaction and a script-based mining algorithm, it is considered like silver compared to bitcoin which is gold, the problem with litecoin is it took a long time to setup merchants and shops so can people actually buy things with it,  it is struggling to catch up to bitcoin but they are still way behind, so trying to invest in it is a big risk even if it is cheap.

[OneUnderBridge]

I have been seriously considering hedging a portion of my Bitcoin
holdings in other cryptocurrencies.

But so far, upon researching, they all seemed to be plagued
with one issue or another.

Ethereum?  Gaining huge traction right now but one
look at the inflation curve compared to Bitcoin and
there's just no way i'm going for that.  

Zcash?  I read that the reason why its so anonymous
is that the funds are internally mixed using a super
secret key 'corporate team key' that 6 people have access to.  
yikes.

Ripple?  Not even a cryptocurrency.  No...just, no.

Dash?  huge instamine (claimed by accident) and 10% of
the rewards go to a treasury account, and some algo
("DGBB") gets to decide how to spend the money. red flags.

It depends on what your motives for investing are.  If you're investing as means to store and grow wealth, as opposed to, investing into a vehicle to engage the market place and precipitate exchange, then you'll approach it from different perspectives.  There are technologies that are much more conducive to promoting market growth than bitcoin.  Early projects that engaged and tackled those problems that bitcoin faced, economy of scales being the big one, are in a good position. The ability to engage the markets is highly undervalued, think about that.  Don't underestimate the value of smart contracting, the exchange of goods and services is what generates wealth, the vehicle used is an abstraction.

[stdset]

Ethereum?  Gaining huge traction right now but one
look at the inflation curve compared to Bitcoin and
there's just no way i'm going for that.  

You didn't mention the biggest red flag: Ethereum is a fiat currency. Blockchain exists to prevent things like arbitrary money supply changing, arbitrary accounts freezing and seizures. They did exactly what blockchain is supposed to prevent people from doing. Of course the original chain survived, but it has much less support than the fucked chain, what questions the very sense of cryptocurrencies existence.

[jonald_fyookball]

Ethereum?  Gaining huge traction right now but one
look at the inflation curve compared to Bitcoin and
there's just no way i'm going for that.  

You didn't mention the biggest red flag: Ethereum is a fiat currency. Blockchain exists to prevent things like arbitrary money supply changing, arbitrary accounts freezing and seizures. They did exactly what blockchain is supposed to prevent people from doing. Of course the original chain survived, but it has much less support than the fucked chain, what questions the very sense of cryptocurrencies existence.

philosophically true but the market doesnt seem to care about that.  if they have a second HF though it will be devastating imo

[d5000]

Ethereum?  Gaining huge traction right now but one look at the inflation curve compared to Bitcoin and there's just no way i'm going for that.  

Ethereum isn't my favourite coin, but let me add two comments:

- "Ether" isn't meant to be used as a regular currency but as a "fuel" for smart contracts. So it's more of a base token on top of which other tokens can be created. An example is MakerDAO, which wants to create a stable currency based on the platform but is in a very early development stage.
- The inflation, if viewed in an exponential way, is descending.

I think with Ethereum one should wait and see if its Turing complete script language really enables something useful that could let to mass usage and couldn't be done in Bitcoin. It's still early and risky. As of governance, for now it's worse than Bitcoin (very centralized).

There are other interesting cryptocurrencies in the second and third tier, like Decred, Sia or Ardor (and others that are very small but interesting, like Slimcoin or Qora), although many of them still are either alpha or their "killer features" (e.g. hard fork voting in Decred) are still not implemented. We have to wait.

So for now, I agree with your general conclusion that there is no really usable alternative.

[OneUnderBridge]

Ethereum?  Gaining huge traction right now but one look at the inflation curve compared to Bitcoin and there's just no way i'm going for that.  

Ethereum isn't my favourite coin, but let me add two comments:

- "Ether" isn't meant to be used as a regular currency but as a "fuel" for smart contracts. So it's more of a base token on top of which other tokens can be created. An example is MakerDAO, which wants to create a stable currency based on the platform but is in a very early development stage.
- The inflation, if viewed in an exponential way, is descending.

I think with Ethereum one should wait and see if its Turing complete script language really enables something useful that could let to mass usage and couldn't be done in Bitcoin. It's still early and risky. As of governance, for now it's worse than Bitcoin (very centralized).

There are other interesting cryptocurrencies in the second and third tier, like Decred, Sia or Ardor (and others that are very small but interesting, like Slimcoin or Qora), although many of them still are either alpha or their "killer features" (e.g. hard fork voting in Decred) are still not implemented. We have to wait.

So for now, I agree with your general conclusion that there is no really usable alternative.

I haven't invested in anything yet but the potential of the Ethereum network is exciting to say the least. It's still a bit over my head but my imagination is running wild thinking about its potential for automated markets.  I think the potential of ethereum requires more vision and forward thinking. I don't think "ether" will be a great store of wealth but I do think the Ethereum network will prove to be a valuable resource.

[brunozisterer]

Jonald try Siacoin.
AAA long term and A-1+ short term.
I can not give this rating to any other coin at the moment.

[sportis]

Maybe an alt with some interesting features is Stratis (based in bitcoin network, client node written in C#). Moreover there is an electrum - stratis wallet and as hardware wallet a limited edition of stratis genesis ledger nano S. Maybe is more a platform than currency but has some interesting people behind it like as the btc core dev Dorier. So maybe it's worth a second look.

[mastermold]

There is no real competitor to Bitcoin when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Currently Bitcoin has 12M+ market cap. The closest competitor is Monero which has a market cap of only about 100K.

The reason for this is that Bitcoin has by far the biggest network effect. Additionally, the Bitcoin network continues to grow at a much faster pace than other cryptocurrencies. The Bitcoin project continues to attract developers, investors and users whereas other cryptocurrencies pale in comparison in each of these areas.