A warning about Alt-Coins

[tysat]

Alt-coins are the only way BTC avoids being an inefficient monopoly. Competition is almost always a good thing. Though maybe it would be good if there were only 3 or 4 alt-coins. I'm thinking maybe just LTC, FTC and Peercoin. More communities working on solving the challenges of cryptocurrency sounds like a good thing, though they are mushrooming too much.

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

What do altcoins add that Bitcoin needs?

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[jackjack]

Alt-coins are the only way BTC avoids being an inefficient monopoly. Competition is almost always a good thing. Though maybe it would be good if there were only 3 or 4 alt-coins. I'm thinking maybe just LTC, FTC and Peercoin. More communities working on solving the challenges of cryptocurrency sounds like a good thing, though they are mushrooming too much.

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

[kingsley]

Alt-coins are the only way BTC avoids being an inefficient monopoly. Competition is almost always a good thing. Though maybe it would be good if there were only 3 or 4 alt-coins. I'm thinking maybe just LTC, FTC and Peercoin. More communities working on solving the challenges of cryptocurrency sounds like a good thing, though they are mushrooming too much.

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

What do altcoins add that Bitcoin needs?

Alt-coins provide an easy store of value when speculating for example. Many exchanges allow BTC/LTC currency pairs and while BTC is volatile LTC and FTC seem to hold steady around 2.1 $ and 0.0004BTC respectively. So when BTC is low you buy BTCs in cash and then when it spikes you sell it for LTC. Then you remove the necessity of cash from the trade, which helps given the difficulty of getting fiat currency into the exchange quickly. So it's not BTC that needs alt-coins, it's just that alt-coins make it easier for BTC trading and eventually supply. 

[nobbynobbynoob]

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

What do altcoins add that Bitcoin needs?

Alt-coins provide an easy store of value when speculating for example. Many exchanges allow BTC/LTC currency pairs and while BTC is volatile LTC and FTC seem to hold steady around 2.1 $ and 0.0004BTC respectively. So when BTC is low you buy BTCs in cash and then when it spikes you sell it for LTC. Then you remove the necessity of cash from the trade, which helps given the difficulty of getting fiat currency into the exchange quickly. So it's not BTC that needs alt-coins, it's just that alt-coins make it easier for BTC trading and eventually supply. 

Good post.

+tip kingsley mBTC1

[rackex]

there simply will never be enough of them for this ever to become a true currency, or to be used in any major way for currency exchange.

This has been addressed a thousand times

I'm fairly new to all this, and haven't found those discussions. But I guarantee you, that people aren't going to be buying a house with their .000256 bitcoins even if they are valued at $10,000,000,000 each.

Not sure why they wouldn't, ppl already buy hotel rooms with bitcoin...hotel room = house for one night

[hhs99]

I often wonder why there is no online wallets with the other cryptocurrencys

I have often wondered that as well. I have been using bter just so i have it all in one place

[rampalija]

I often wonder why there is no online wallets with the other cryptocurrencys

I have often wondered that as well. I have been using bter just so i have it all in one place

Maybe somebody is working on it

[MarketTime]

Alt-coins are the only way BTC avoids being an inefficient monopoly. Competition is almost always a good thing. Though maybe it would be good if there were only 3 or 4 alt-coins. I'm thinking maybe just LTC, FTC and Peercoin. More communities working on solving the challenges of cryptocurrency sounds like a good thing, though they are mushrooming too much.

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

What do altcoins add that Bitcoin needs?

Alt-coins provide an easy store of value when speculating for example. Many exchanges allow BTC/LTC currency pairs and while BTC is volatile LTC and FTC seem to hold steady around 2.1 $ and 0.0004BTC respectively. So when BTC is low you buy BTCs in cash and then when it spikes you sell it for LTC. Then you remove the necessity of cash from the trade, which helps given the difficulty of getting fiat currency into the exchange quickly. So it's not BTC that needs alt-coins, it's just that alt-coins make it easier for BTC trading and eventually supply. 

Thanks for sharing, thats what I have been trying to do but always went in too early...

[rampalija]

Alt-coins are the only way BTC avoids being an inefficient monopoly. Competition is almost always a good thing. Though maybe it would be good if there were only 3 or 4 alt-coins. I'm thinking maybe just LTC, FTC and Peercoin. More communities working on solving the challenges of cryptocurrency sounds like a good thing, though they are mushrooming too much.

BTC would never be what is now, without altcoins. You have to admint that

What do altcoins add that Bitcoin needs?

Alt-coins provide an easy store of value when speculating for example. Many exchanges allow BTC/LTC currency pairs and while BTC is volatile LTC and FTC seem to hold steady around 2.1 $ and 0.0004BTC respectively. So when BTC is low you buy BTCs in cash and then when it spikes you sell it for LTC. Then you remove the necessity of cash from the trade, which helps given the difficulty of getting fiat currency into the exchange quickly. So it's not BTC that needs alt-coins, it's just that alt-coins make it easier for BTC trading and eventually supply. 

Thanks for sharing, thats what I have been trying to do but always went in too early...

to early or to late, me too

[IXC2XIC]

Sure looks like it.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Almost all of the alt-coins out there are going to be a waste of time.  They're being created to take advantage of people who get super excited about different things and then get pumped and dumped.

Be careful about wasting time with too many alt coins.

Be careful about downloading files, seems like there's plenty of wallet stealers around hidden as alt coin miners.
Seen some more of this recently, so wanted to highlight the point.

Here's some good info from later in the thread:

1) Don't just trust the status of a member, anyone can write 500 posts and be a hero member in a short period. This just means that he invested some time on his membership. He can always decide that a profitable scam will be a good payment for his time.
2) Never deal with anyone without doing a search in the forum with his nickname, in order to check if he has scam accusations.
3) Ask for his coin address and always search it on blockchain.info or www.cryptocoinexplorer.com to verify if his address has the amounts he is claiming.
4) Be very suspicious about proposals well under market price or if he accepts your proposal under market price with no negotiation.
5) Look for the reputation of the member (his successful trades, in the form of vouches from the other party on the deal).
6) Even if he has some reputation, never send all the money in one transfer: send one first very small tranche (0.1 btc might be a good start) and wait for his payment. Send a second little higher tranche and wait again, etc. Small increments, because he might decide to pay you the first and second, to scam a bigger tranche. Always suspect if he doesn't accept to trade in small tranches.
7) If he has no reputation (including most cases when he is a newbie or a Jr.), even small tranches are a risk. Better use an escrow system, like the one of bitmit.net, or a trusted member, or you might need to send over 10 very small tranches. It can be annoying, but loosing your money will be more.
8] For big amounts always use an escrow system, unless the member has an excellent reputation.

Since this thread is a sticky, I decided to post this here. Any moderator or member feel free to move, copy or improve these rules at will.

What are the safest alt coins? (minus LTC of course)

i would stay with Litecoin. Namecoin is a nice idea too but has a poor development-"team".

others are too risky.

[jackjack]

i would stay with Litecoin.

It would be strange to see LitecoinGuy supporting another altcoin...

Namecoin is a nice idea too but has a poor development-"team".

The team was quite good and motivated years ago
I don't know what happened but yeah nothing much happens nowadays

[liexel]

hi, i'm pretty new to this as well and i'm really trying to get a foot in on cryptocurrencies.. i don't have much to invest but bitcoins do seem a bit pricey now and i'm not sure how much more it can appreciate, so was wondering how much higher can it go before it seems overvalued. i read some posts predicting it might go up to a 1,000 or 10,000 or smth but that sounds rather high and people gotta start paying in very small decimal points of bitcoins for small stuff which characterises most of the online retail market which seems administratively a bit strange to me, especially if they are be odd numbers and not like rounded thousands or something. (i'm sorry this might be a very trivial point but i do really wonder if such an expensive currency might have its problems..) which brings me to think that the cheaper alt coins might gain more traction and get comparatively more growth in the mass market?

at the moment i've been looking at litecoins and feathercoins. correct me if i'm wrong but they say litecoins should theoretically should be a quarter of bitcoins value, and feathercoins a quarter of litecoins, so the projection for litecoins in the next couple of years should be about 50 and feathercoins about 15 or so? in this case it seems so much more logical to invest in feathercoins since they are worth so little at the moment, the growth would be so much more exponential. also there's that advanced checkpointing thing that makes feathercoin more resillient, but then again the other coins could do the same.

i'm still trying to wrap my head around the technicalities of it all, but at the momentit seems like the support for feathercoin is fairly positive. im thinking it might be a profitable bet.. provided it doesn't go bust for some reason unknown to me..

thoughts please? maybe my thought process is a little too simplistic.. not sure what other factors i should consider. haven't read much yet about the other coins in the market.. are there other comparable coins that have better features, or should i stick to bitcoins and litecoins..? just wanna do some research before i go in on this.. might even borrow some money ha..

[darthreaper4]

phew, getting all this info for mining is hard.

[FamilyDinner]

there simply will never be enough of them for this ever to become a true currency, or to be used in any major way for currency exchange.

This has been addressed a thousand times

I'm fairly new to all this, and haven't found those discussions. But I guarantee you, that people aren't going to be buying a house with their .000256 bitcoins even if they are valued at $10,000,000,000 each.

Not sure why they wouldn't, ppl already buy hotel rooms with bitcoin...hotel room = house for one night

Hmm, if I have a hotel, I will make the payment through bitcoin's available too! And probably I'll leave a leaflet or a small book containing information about bitcoin inside the rooms as well. And I'll encourage my employees in that hotel to make receiving tips through bitcoin available too, though that would be a very big mess, blah who cares. If only I have a hotel. *sighs*

[toeshe]

could someone teach me the right way to get paid on this please
I dont know how to get a hold of  lucazane


Status: 0/unconfirmed
Date: 11/1/2013 22:59
From: unknown
To: EvrDiSdSsjfKpEyCAVFtMr428NMXqTERpN (own address, label: block factory)
Credit: 90.411378 HOBO
Net amount: +90.411378 HOBO
Transaction ID: 9b2050e76c1f564a673dcd44728da93080fec812784d7e9138d3da2e341091d4

[rampalija]

there simply will never be enough of them for this ever to become a true currency, or to be used in any major way for currency exchange.

This has been addressed a thousand times

I'm fairly new to all this, and haven't found those discussions. But I guarantee you, that people aren't going to be buying a house with their .000256 bitcoins even if they are valued at $10,000,000,000 each.

Not sure why they wouldn't, ppl already buy hotel rooms with bitcoin...hotel room = house for one night

Hmm, if I have a hotel, I will make the payment through bitcoin's available too! And probably I'll leave a leaflet or a small book containing information about bitcoin inside the rooms as well. And I'll encourage my employees in that hotel to make receiving tips through bitcoin available too, though that would be a very big mess, blah who cares. If only I have a hotel. *sighs*

Then you should buy hotel with BTCs,

If i had a hotel i would not be interested in BTCs

[fastcore]

I have been mining Litecoin with my GPU. Have considered messing with Feathercoin and PPcoin.

[emilia79]

Why are there so many alternative coins to bitcoin ?

[trollguru]

Why are there so many alternative coins to bitcoin ?

Lots are made by people wanting to make their own bitcoin I think. some of them have different encryption things though.