Alt valuations versus BTC - why still?

[anderl]

In light of the recent ASIC attacks on BTC    the difficulty has been shutting out GPU miners making BTC less profitable to mine.  In addition a lot of ASIC owners are selling BTC in order to recoup their ASIC hardware investments.  This has put a lot of pressure on BTC prices.

However alt coins are still pegging to BTC price.  Coinchoose identifies coins based on profitability to BTC.  Cryptsy only allows trading of alt coins against BTC (3 versus LTC).  The damage ASIC's are doing to BTC is rippling through Alt coin valuations.

I think we are coming close to a significant cross road.  

1. We continue to peg to BTC past the GPU profitability break even point.  As a result alts are not profitable to mine and most die a slow death.
2. Alts decouple from BTC and are gauged not by their profitability to mining vs. BTC but to valuations against other fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBY, JPY)  

2. will require the implementation of a better exchange than Cryptsy.  Cryptsy is great, don't get me wrong but it has its limitation and while it helps reduce the scamming that occurs on forums it does not do enough to get alts decoupled from BTC and trading independently.

[TheSpiral]

While I would like to see more final destinations like BTC seems to be, it is a bit of a headache for exchanges to put every coin against every coin, and potentially an interface confusion for consumers/users. I think the best thing to do would be to add a couple more coins to value comparatively... the problem with that is deciding which, as 99% of them are extremely unstable and fluctuate in their own value by the hour. There's a couple that are becoming more stabilized, but need a bit more time to see if they settle in.

http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency shows stability, but that's up for interpretation and bias. It's possible coins like WorldCoin and DigitalCoin might get to that point, just probably not yet.

TL;DR I agree more coins should be traded against others, but that's hard to do and/or confusing... for now. When some of these new coins stabilize, they should be able to convert to whatever (including fiat) without going through BitCoin first.

[mercSuey]

If a virtual currency can be exchanged for USD on a website then Fincen classifies said website as a money exchanger and requires a permit.  Cryptsy is Fincen compliant, and you'll be able to exchange your coins into USD soon.

[BitJohn]

If a virtual currency can be exchanged for USD on a website then Fincen classifies said website as a money exchanger and requires a permit.  Cryptsy is Fincen compliant, and you'll be able to exchange your coins into USD soon.

We are working the legal hurdles to be sure cryptsy.com is fully compliant and then we will allow for FIAT trading. It is coming.

[owsleybeatsbigcartel]

f you live in the USA and want an easy way to buy BTC use Campbx.com. Use my referral link and get 10% off of your Bitcoin commissions register here: https://CampBX.com/register.php?r=71W7SUaY6y9


ya i clicked here and the first thing pops up is dwolla!!!~~~i thought they got kracked?

wtf fool?

[owsleybeatsbigcartel]

In light of the recent ASIC attacks on BTC    the difficulty has been shutting out GPU miners making BTC less profitable to mine.  In addition a lot of ASIC owners are selling BTC in order to recoup their ASIC hardware investments.  This has put a lot of pressure on BTC prices.

However alt coins are still pegging to BTC price.  Coinchoose identifies coins based on profitability to BTC.  Cryptsy only allows trading of alt coins against BTC (3 versus LTC).  The damage ASIC's are doing to BTC is rippling through Alt coin valuations.

I think we are coming close to a significant cross road.  

1. We continue to peg to BTC past the GPU profitability break even point.  As a result alts are not profitable to mine and most die a slow death.
2. Alts decouple from BTC and are gauged not by their profitability to mining vs. BTC but to valuations against other fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBY, JPY)  

2. will require the implementation of a better exchange than Cryptsy.  Cryptsy is great, don't get me wrong but it has its limitation and while it helps reduce the scamming that occurs on forums it does not do enough to get alts decoupled from BTC and trading independently.

X - BATH SALTS!!!! lmao weeeeeeee

[erk]

While I would like to see more final destinations like BTC seems to be, it is a bit of a headache for exchanges to put every coin against every coin, and potentially an interface confusion for consumers/users. I think the best thing to do would be to add a couple more coins to value comparatively... the problem with that is deciding which, as 99% of them are extremely unstable and fluctuate in their own value by the hour. There's a couple that are becoming more stabilized, but need a bit more time to see if they settle in.

http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency shows stability, but that's up for interpretation and bias. It's possible coins like WorldCoin and DigitalCoin might get to that point, just probably not yet.

TL;DR I agree more coins should be traded against others, but that's hard to do and/or confusing... for now. When some of these new coins stabilize, they should be able to convert to whatever (including fiat) without going through BitCoin first.

Ultimately when trading N coins with each other, the user interface is what suffers, just look at the long page of options on vicurex. You need a way of presenting all the permutations, not just a linear list or rows of buttons.

I quite like the way Bter are doing it with a pop down menu for each coin, each having a list of coins it can be traded with.

[anderl]

If a virtual currency can be exchanged for USD on a website then Fincen classifies said website as a money exchanger and requires a permit.  Cryptsy is Fincen compliant, and you'll be able to exchange your coins into USD soon.

We are working the legal hurdles to be sure cryptsy.com is fully compliant and then we will allow for FIAT trading. It is coming.

Thanks, ask and ye shall receive.  And timely I might add.

[sal002]

... Coinchoose identifies coins based on profitability to BTC.  ...

We also identify based on profitability to LTC.

[MashRinx]

f you live in the USA and want an easy way to buy BTC use Campbx.com. Use my referral link and get 10% off of your Bitcoin commissions register here: https://CampBX.com/register.php?r=71W7SUaY6y9


ya i clicked here and the first thing pops up is dwolla!!!~~~i thought they got kracked?

wtf fool?

The way I understand it, Mt Gox's Dwolla account was frozen because they were not FinCEN compliant.  That shouldn't have any impact on any other exchanges who are compliant.

[billionaire]

... Coinchoose identifies coins based on profitability to BTC.  ...

We also identify based on profitability to LTC.

LTC value is derived directly from BTC though, so it's the same end result.