A warning about Alt-Coins

[owsleybeatsbigcartel]

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.

legit or not these will trade like otc pennystocks if you dont understand otc trading you will lose all your money!! :-)WEEEEEE

[owsleybeatsbigcartel]

Most Alt coins are completely pointless and just poor replicas of what's already out there with little to no improvement.

Do you think WDC is?

looking like a nice crew over at that camp!!! :-) weeeeee

[owsleybeatsbigcartel]

My suspicion is the vast majority of alt-coins are get rich quick schemes.

Get rich quick schemes work for a few, they don't work for most.
And those they do work for often blow it trying to repeat. Just like the guy who wins the slots, the hotel puts him up so he stays and gambles it all away.

I missed out on the boom of bitcoin but big deal, none of the others are going to have the same kind of boom.

bitcoin has been around a couple years, it still goes up and down sometimes like crazy but while I do think it may still be overvalued at the moment, it's value is changing from speculation to a value based upon the fact that you can actually buy things with it. That's a much more solid foundation for value than speculation that it is the next big thing.

You have $100 to throw at alt-coins, it's your money - speculate away. Maybe you'll get lucky but most of them will fail, and I fear their failure will put a sour taste in people's mouth possibly turning them off to bitcoin as well. But I'm guessing bitcoin will survive.

With respect to government backed crypto-currency - the reason I want bitcoin is specifically because there is no government / mainstream banking control. I don't want something I write to have to be censored because Credit Card company deems it obscene even though it is legal and I don't want .gov to be able to freeze my accounts while they investigate me for something that is legal but they don't like.

bitcoin gives me that freedom and that's why I am starting to use it. I'm not in this for the speculation, that ship has sailed and most speculators will fail and I certainly don't want to use a currency for my business that has a high probability of failing even if odds are that a few will make it.

So for me - bitcoin is where it's at.

BUY the rumour SELL the FACT!

[reneedr]

So what do you guys think about the newly released CopperLark alt-coin ? Looks kinda promising compared to all the other ones..

Had not heard of it until you, thanks I will look into them!

[reneedr]

So what do you guys think about the newly released CopperLark alt-coin ? Looks kinda promising compared to all the other ones..

Had not heard of it until you, thanks I will look into them!

Found on another post:

Re: [CL] CopperLark Coin Giveaway
June 06, 2013, 02:08:57 PM
   
 #12
There are no rootkits, but a few of another problems exists:

    2 million premined coins in block #1;
    retarget algorithm is vulnerable to diff slowdown, diff resonance and diff oscillation.

[reneedr]

Is anyone actually keeping track of all the ALT coins around?

It would be interesting to see a full list and some stats.

(But also a lot of work to create and maintain)

I have found this site useful, but it is only keeping track of a few:

dustcoin.com/mining

I have been keeping a short list myself. I have down about 15 or so:

BQC - BBQcoin
BTC - Bitcoin
CNC - CHNcoin
CLC - CopperLarkcoin
DGC - Digitalcoin
DVC - Devcoin
FRC - Friecoin
FTC - Feathercoin
LTC - Litecoin
MMC - Memecoin
NMC - Namecoin
NVC - Novacoin
PPC - PPcoin or Peercoin
PXC - Phenixcoin (yes, spelled wrong)
SXC - Sexcoin
TRC - Terracoin
WDC - Worldcoin

I do not have all of these types of Alt-coins, these are just the ones I've heard of. I'm sure there are more.

EDIT: Found a topic here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0

[DazCat]

I have been keeping a short list myself. I have down about 15 or so:

EDIT: Found a topic here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0

Thanks for the list.
I found that thread just after I posted here.

I read that there were about 20 ALT Coins released in May alone.

Lots of confusion as to which to invest time in.

Cheers,

DC.

[atariguy]

I wonder what LTC will do when GPU mining is no longer feasible for mining BTC

I suspect cloud computing will make that a non issue.

Even if the payout isn't big, it will be in the best interest of businesses that accept Bitcoin to let their extra cycles be used for mining.

Cloud computing is probably one of the least efficient ways to mine. I saw where someone experimented with a virtual machine on AWS with some free credit, and it was utterly pathetic. There really aren't any extra cycles in cloud computing, anyway.

[atariguy]

I have been keeping a short list myself. I have down about 15 or so:

EDIT: Found a topic here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134179.0

Thanks for the list.
I found that thread just after I posted here.

I read that there were about 20 ALT Coins released in May alone.

Lots of confusion as to which to invest time in.

Cheers,

DC.

If it's not on an exchange, it's probably not worth your time. (And even then, unless you trade before it crashes, it still won't be worth your time - look at FTC and CNC).

[US Andy]

If anyone is still mining Liquidcoin, please let me know so I can add your node(s). I still have 2 miners running. Thanks.

[libobo]

Very good

[yanglaod]

Very good

[dongbfb]

Alt-Coins Very good

[Ginduliai]

Alt-Coins Very good

 

[tiberiandusk]

I bet thats the kind of thinking many had about Bitcoins in the beginning but look where it is now

Yeah, because it was new and innovative. Most of these altcoins do nothing more than tweak some settings in bitcoin. Nothing innovative about that. Pump and dumpers.

[ctala]

The only thing good that I see about the alt coins is that they are easier to get nowadays that bitcoins. Less people mining, so more possible profit in the future for the ones that do it.

[elefter]

The only thing good that I see about the alt coins is that they are easier to get nowadays that bitcoins. Less people mining, so more possible profit in the future for the ones that do it.

alt coins is the only way to mine with GPU from now on...

[#Gold]

CHN (China coin) appears to be a coin that goes nowhere.  I really wonder if it is worth continuing to mine this coin.  At this time I am considering to switch my miner over to FTC, but I have invested so much time and money on this CHN.  Am I wasting my time?

[Noble]

CHN (China coin) appears to be a coin that goes nowhere.  I really wonder if it is worth continuing to mine this coin.  At this time I am considering to switch my miner over to FTC, but I have invested so much time and money on this CHN.  Am I wasting my time?

It's impossible to predict the future of any coin, but if you think that it's a loss, it might just be a loss. In the terms of switching coins, I try to accumulate as many alt-coins as I can to make sure that if one takes off, I at least had my hand in the cookie jar. I'd say switch to FTC.

[US Andy]

Seems like there are way too many alt coins being released now, most doomed to failure