why so many currencies?

[sv624]

Hi All,
Please help me understand in plain English how will we benefit from so many currencies?
I see so many startups with decentralized blockchain ideas with their own crypto currency.
Today I purchased oatmeal directly from a mill at their website.
This mill sells its products thru grocers and other online stores as well.
They probably gave 3% to the credit card company, which they could reduce by using blockchain.
But if every store and every business starts creating their own currency, then I will have to go thru an exchange to convert BTC or ETH to that coin to make some purchase.
Then we would need miners to process all those transactions in various coins.
Why can't they just use ETH? Just like all IPOs use dollars.
Thanks in advance

[RoommateAgreement]

we don't have so many currencies.
* we have fiat and then we have bitcoin.
* then there are some altcoins like Litecoin and Monero that have been trying to act as a currency, they succeed a little.
* then we have lots of "tokens". just numbers on the screen created for trading alone.
* then we have lots of different "tokens" like ETH that are not even supposed to be a currency but people mistake them for a currency.

[squatz1]

Well this is what I've been trying to show people in this community for the longest time, we won't in any way shape or form benefit from having multiple currencies. It's not going to help anyone that we have tens of thousands of altcoins that can do this this and this, but aren't used by a single soul. If all of these people rallied behind Bitcoin and provided news time for Bitcoin we'd be even higher in price and we'd have more people actually using it, but no, we have tons of Altcoins that are shit.

No reason, just greed for the developers that make these shitcoins and sell them in mass amounts.

[drm]

we don't have so many currencies.
* we have fiat and then we have bitcoin.
* then there are some altcoins like Litecoin and Monero that have been trying to act as a currency, they succeed a little.
* then we have lots of "tokens". just numbers on the screen created for trading alone.
* then we have lots of different "tokens" like ETH that are not even supposed to be a currency but people mistake them for a currency.

There might be a time in the future where bitcoin users will be begging for the anonymity some of these coins offer.

[junoreactor]

There must be a thousand cryptos right now. Answer is: because anyone can make one. It also mean loads of them are scams.
If you invest, I recommend to stick to the 50 biggest ones.

[newlone]

What you say can be very simple but big business guys do not think so. To create a single currency requires a great deal of money to set up. Not all customers know and want to use virtual currency as a form of payment, although it is more convenient than conventional but the use and purchase is too complicated.

[IamAltcoinfan]

If your telling about crypto currency then there is less like litecoin , doge , eth some more most of other currencies which you called will token mostly build using different blockchain technology like eth, waves or nem platform which will be using the ability to create tokens inside the platform so that each transaction will be transparent and decentralised so that no authority can change the transaction data. There is lots of business and other solution giving token as shares or asset which you can convert to btc or eth in exchanges.

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

What you say can be very simple but big business guys do not think so. To create a single currency requires a great deal of money to set up. Not all customers know and want to use virtual currency as a form of payment, although it is more convenient than conventional but the use and purchase is too complicated.

Starting in 2013, and every year since then hundreds of crypto currencies or tokens have been created.

That's four straight years of so many currencies/altcoins/scamcoins being made.

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

How come Bitcoin continues to be the strongest and most secure and most trusted and most globally distributed despite this fact?

[HabBear]

This is a great question!

First, "We" won't benefit from all these currencies, we'll benefit from the few (less than 10) that are currently established and offer unique benefits from each other.

Second, smaller groups of people may, may benefit from a specific currency based on their affiliation to the firm or entity that produced the currency, add all those small groups up and you have a lot of people benefiting from a lot of currencies but the relationship isn't one to many, it's one to one. E.g., think of hotel loyalty rewards points being converted to a crypto-currency token - now you earn the tokens at the same rate, but you can also buy more tokens or sell your tokens on the open market...you're not stuck having to use them if you don't need to

Third, ICOs (initial coin offerings) are being used by companies (startups mostly) as a way to raise capital and serves as an alternative to having ads in an app or charging for "in app purchases", instead you have these tokens that are you can redeem for goods or services offered by the company but you're not tied to them, they can be traded for other tokens to get other benefits and other companies.

[xenxen]

not all token are currencies some of them are disguise a currency and some of them is a scam if you buy currency in the low price check it out first because some of them is shit coin that if you have done to buy you realize that there's have no value..so its better to research carefuuly to buy....

[kangjiasg]

There are many new currencies up and coming as well and the speed is going much faster. However there are also a lot of currencies that came out with the intention to scam. Do beware

[Chanock]

Their are token not currencies, The only considered crypto currency in digital world is bitcoin and fiat. If you notice ETH, WAVES, Monero, Dogecoin and ect. are all transferable to bitcoin and USD meaning this all coin is considered as token because they are used by ICO's as toke or coin. Some ICO and blockchain create there own token or coin but not currency.

[yndye]

There are so many currencies because it is the trend right now. There may actually be less than 10 who has true value right now and are actually use by people. Others are just for speculation purposes. There are coins that are abandoned already by developers thus it has no value anymore and there are many ICOs who end up being scam. So far bitcoin has been the most famous of all because it has usage in the real world like purchasing products and pay for services.

[StevenRA]

"We" don't. But the people selling the currencies do.

Hi All,
Please help me understand in plain English how will we benefit from so many currencies?
I see so many startups with decentralized blockchain ideas with their own crypto currency.
Today I purchased oatmeal directly from a mill at their website.
This mill sells its products thru grocers and other online stores as well.
They probably gave 3% to the credit card company, which they could reduce by using blockchain.
But if every store and every business starts creating their own currency, then I will have to go thru an exchange to convert BTC or ETH to that coin to make some purchase.
Then we would need miners to process all those transactions in various coins.
Why can't they just use ETH? Just like all IPOs use dollars.
Thanks in advance

[pugman]

Hi All,
Please help me understand in plain English how will we benefit from so many currencies?
I see so many startups with decentralized blockchain ideas with their own crypto currency.
Today I purchased oatmeal directly from a mill at their website.
This mill sells its products thru grocers and other online stores as well.
They probably gave 3% to the credit card company, which they could reduce by using blockchain.
But if every store and every business starts creating their own currency, then I will have to go thru an exchange to convert BTC or ETH to that coin to make some purchase.
Then we would need miners to process all those transactions in various coins.
Why can't they just use ETH? Just like all IPOs use dollars.
Thanks in advance

That's the specialty of cryptos, they don't want to use eth and there is a clear profit motive behind it, how it works is that it takes a couple of hundred dollars to create a crypto because entering data into blockchain is easy, like they say. Then the company issues the crypto to the investors in return of eth and after the ico ends the coin may be listed on a terrible exchange which won't profit the investors, but it increases the profitability of the owner.

[RoommateAgreement]

we don't have so many currencies.
* we have fiat and then we have bitcoin.
* then there are some altcoins like Litecoin and Monero that have been trying to act as a currency, they succeed a little.
* then we have lots of "tokens". just numbers on the screen created for trading alone.
* then we have lots of different "tokens" like ETH that are not even supposed to be a currency but people mistake them for a currency.

There might be a time in the future where bitcoin users will be begging for the anonymity some of these coins offer.

some bitcoin users already looking for that anonymity right now. and in the future there will be more but it will never be the majority.
that is just my opinion but i believe that majority of users are not looking for the high level of anonymity that coins like Monero offer. additionally it has scaling issues!
and also when everyone looks bad on these full anon coins (like government) and think them for illegal activities, regular users won't be so happy to jump on board with them.

[pawanjain]

we don't have so many currencies.
* we have fiat and then we have bitcoin.
* then there are some altcoins like Litecoin and Monero that have been trying to act as a currency, they succeed a little.
* then we have lots of "tokens". just numbers on the screen created for trading alone.
* then we have lots of different "tokens" like ETH that are not even supposed to be a currency but people mistake them for a currency.

Very well said mate. Thousands of tokens out there and people still want more. The mere fact that investing in ICOs and tokens would make them good profit makes investors to invest more and more money in them. The developers get investors with an ease and they also get profit in return.
It's all about making money and not about the tokens or currencies. Why wouldn't they make new tokens then ?
I guess its high time now that people stop generating tokens and start to create actual crypto currencies. All of the tokens they are generating are just a waste of time and being created just to make money.

[player514]

Hi All,
Please help me understand in plain English how will we benefit from so many currencies?
I see so many startups with decentralized blockchain ideas with their own crypto currency.
Today I purchased oatmeal directly from a mill at their website.
This mill sells its products thru grocers and other online stores as well.
They probably gave 3% to the credit card company, which they could reduce by using blockchain.
But if every store and every business starts creating their own currency, then I will have to go thru an exchange to convert BTC or ETH to that coin to make some purchase.
Then we would need miners to process all those transactions in various coins.
Why can't they just use ETH? Just like all IPOs use dollars.
Thanks in advance

The different currencies you are referring to are what I believe are ICOs. Think of ICO as an example idea posed to the public to solve a certain problem using the same technology behind crypto currency. For example, enjincoin is an ICO in which a large gaming corporation is implementing a coin into a community of gamers using the blockchain technology.

[MattHoo]

There are not so many currencies but have fiat currency and crypto currencies.
* We have Bitcoin.
* Still there are many Altcoins like Litecoin, ETH and Ripple  that have been trying to act as a currency, they succeed a little.
Not all ICOs use dollars, they accept the currencies in their countries.

[Vatimins]

Hi All,
Please help me understand in plain English how will we benefit from so many currencies?
I see so many startups with decentralized blockchain ideas with their own crypto currency.
Today I purchased oatmeal directly from a mill at their website.
This mill sells its products thru grocers and other online stores as well.
They probably gave 3% to the credit card company, which they could reduce by using blockchain.
But if every store and every business starts creating their own currency, then I will have to go thru an exchange to convert BTC or ETH to that coin to make some purchase.
Then we would need miners to process all those transactions in various coins.
Why can't they just use ETH? Just like all IPOs use dollars.
Thanks in advance

Well, I don't know about you guys but I for sure have got only 3 currencies that I am currently using today. And those are my country's, the us dollars, and bitcoin. The other coins or tokens you have mentioned? I only see them as trading tools(other than dollar signs of course). But hey, some of these coins really have great platforms. And may be of use to any of us in the future. So i think it is still too early to call these all other coins/tokens as useless. Because some of yall might even be users of these coins like me who use it for trading.