Why are so many devoted to Bitcoin vs other cryptos?

[Pursuer]

Even some merchants and vendors have dumped Bitcoin in favor of other cryptos.  Most know of the STEAM example.

they stopped accepting bitcoin but not for other cryptos, they are not foolish enough to add another altcoin that nobody even uses. it is not worth the hassle.
and in case you missed it, steam was using bitpay to accept bitcoin payments and bitpay doesn't accept any other altcoin so that is a no no right there

besides I would love to hear your thoughts. for example what altcoin do you suggest we start using? and please explain why and also how that altcoin has solved the scaling issue of bitcoin?

[Realist247]

Even some merchants and vendors have dumped Bitcoin in favor of other cryptos.  Most know of the STEAM example.

they stopped accepting bitcoin but not for other cryptos, they are not foolish enough to add another altcoin that nobody even uses. it is not worth the hassle.
and in case you missed it, steam was using bitpay to accept bitcoin payments and bitpay doesn't accept any other altcoin so that is a no no right there

besides I would love to hear your thoughts. for example what altcoin do you suggest we start using? and please explain why and also how that altcoin has solved the scaling issue of bitcoin?

Well a few days ago, back when it was $130 per coin I recommended LTC.  It's now over $300 a few days later.  The reason I like it is because it is basically a Bitcoin clone that has integrated more scalability at the outset.  I also like the lead developer who has a good reputation.  In contrast, one of the things I've never liked about Bitcoin from many years ago when I first learned about it was that it was developed probably by a group that claimed to be a single individual...and they've completely disappeared, leaving a custodian to manage it.  This raised many red flags with me.  I was actually following Litecoin for a few months before I actually wrote it out as something to buy.  The reason I started really paying attention to it was after seeing the fees and transaction delays spiral out of control with the last run-up of $9000 of Bitcoin.  The fact that Steam dropped Bitcoin and started accepting LTC added a lot of potential in my mind.  Personally I believe that Litecoin won't see scaling problems even if it becomes much larger than BTC.  I don't know how long that can continue but that's really up to their development team.  I know that people on this thread won't like to hear it but I think LTC can supplant BTC as the leader if BTC doesn't get its act together.

The other coins that I like, now more than ever, are Dash and Bitcoin Cash.  Now that BTC is having the problems that it is having, suddenly BCH seems like the logical successor...the coin that follows in the spirit of the original white paper.  Dash is fast and private.  I don't understand it as well as the other coins but from what I've read it seems attractive.

Overall I still don't understand the blind loyalty to BTC.  Those who built it made their money and are probably long gone.  If people know anything about history they'd understand that in the early adoption phase the vast majority of the market is open to options.  Too many people on these forums treat Bitcoin like a cult that cannot be questioned.  Not only is this attitude reckless but it almost always ends badly from a historical point of view.  This is supposed to be a forum for discussion and debate of opposing points of view....where people can come up with new ideas and new ways of looking at things so they can evolve and adapt.  Instead here we have nearly a fundamentalist religion that acts like a cult that just discusses the same things over and over with threads that reach into the hundreds of pages where nothing original is said and the OP stopped replying literally years ago.  That is not what a discussion forum is meant to be...just like BTC is not behaving the way most people understood it for most of its existence.

[mevmike]

i think they are just being practical.
since bitcoin is more trusted than any other altcoins.
it is also more enticing to new investors due to its price as compared to others.

[wjchong]

Why are so many devoted to Bitcoin vs other cryptos?
This is because Bitcoin are reliable, easy to use, less fees on transaction, and its versatile price.

[Realist247]

I think it's quite simple. Bitcoin has the best team of devs working on it, it is already well established and it's not something brand new, or forked from the original coin (because bitcoin is the original coin), and has the biggest growth potencial, because it will be the first coin to scale globally. Of course it's facing problems, and other coins aren't, because bitcoin has the biggest amount of users. If the other coins had the bitcoin status, they would probably be facing the same problems.

Also, bitcoin is opening road for all other coins to prosper, and you can't really see that apparently. Most of the success that other coins are facing, is due to the success bitcoin is having. Crypto is an aggressive market I get it, other coins don't need to show appreciation to bitcoin for clearing barrier after barrier, and allowing them to just keep moving forward without many adversities, but going to the point of thinking that investing in bitcoin is just because of blind loyalty is just silly in my opinion.

Also, you are just focused on profit, and that is probably another reason why bitcoin will probably succeed, and other coins will probably fail. I prefer bitcoin to other coins because of well justified loyalty, not blind loyalty, and in my opinion I think it's important to believe in a project, and there is nothing wrong with that.

If Bitcoin had the "best team" of devs working on it, they would have foreseen the current problems and solved them long ago.  BTC is 8 years old...that is an eternity in the world of software.  If they cannot fix the scaling problems by now I don't know if they ever will...or if they do another coin or coins will have already taken the place of BTC.  Remember that probably 99% of those now learning about crypto don't have a favorite and will flock to whichever has the best fundamentals for the user.

"You can't really see that apparently" - patt0

I see that Bitcoin was the pioneer.  While that's a nice history lesson, the market doesn't care.  If markets followed what you describe, Atari would still be the king of gaming consoles.  It collapsed as fast as it took over the industry in its early years.  Insert any number of other examples here.  What barriers is Bitcoin clearing?  If anything it is putting up barriers when merchants stop using it.  They will be even slower to adopt another crypto after giving up before.

I am just focused on profit?  No...actually I'm focused on Bitcoin behaving like a currency.  If it sounds like I'm focused on profit it's because I'm just posing a question that appeals to 99% of those reading this forum...since greed is king to almost everyone involved in crypto these days.  Long ago it was a Libertarian/freedom concept but Bitcoin has been taken over by speculators that couldn't care less about its original ideals.

"Well justified loyalty"....let's see how long it lasts.  Place your bets...everyone else is doing it.

[nick_nick]

It's no secret that BTC has a big problem with fees and transaction times and it's getting worse with rising valuation and number of users.  That's the first issue.  Bitcoin's closest market cap competitors don't have these issues....at least not yet.

The second issue is that other cryptos have given better returns year-on-year vs. Bitcoin...especially in the past week to a month.  During that period BTC went up 100% but some of its closest competitors in market cap have returned 200-300%....or better.

To me, this is a no-brainer.  Even some merchants and vendors have dumped Bitcoin in favor of other cryptos.  Most know of the STEAM example.

So why are so many on this forum not switching?  Most of you would be in a position to get in before the crypto ignorant (new investors) start piling in fresh cash.

I really do not understand the logic since I don't believe for a second that it is an issue of brand loyalty...especially how little it is discussed as an option.

Thoughts?

Many are devoted to Bitcoin because of the following reasons:
1. acceptability: bitcoin is gradually gaining much acceptance for varied transactions accross the globe. unlike altcoin that needs to be exchange for bitcoin or fiat money before transactions can be possible.
2. high profit potential: most people are stacked to bitcoin not only because its the first crypto currency but also has the tendency of high returns on investment.

[ModaFuka1994]

It's too easy to know about the reason for this problem )) Just because Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and the highest price cryptocurrency at the moment . It has gone really far, about 10 years and this long time make people more believe in Bitcoin than other cryptocurrency. But for now I think people not only focus in Bitcoin like before, they also focus on ETH or other altcoin with good potential as well.

[maydna]

Why are so many devoted to Bitcoin vs other cryptos?
This is because Bitcoin are reliable, easy to use, less fees on transaction, and its versatile price.

because people prefer bitcoin than other cryptos. they can withdraw their bitcoin into fiat and if they want to use other cryptos then I don't think that it will easy for them to withdraw. besides that, new people only know bitcoin and they don't know that besides bitcoin, there are many altcoins and after they learn more about cryptocurrency, they finally understand.

[Pursuer]

Even some merchants and vendors have dumped Bitcoin in favor of other cryptos.  Most know of the STEAM example.

they stopped accepting bitcoin but not for other cryptos, they are not foolish enough to add another altcoin that nobody even uses. it is not worth the hassle.
and in case you missed it, steam was using bitpay to accept bitcoin payments and bitpay doesn't accept any other altcoin so that is a no no right there

besides I would love to hear your thoughts. for example what altcoin do you suggest we start using? and please explain why and also how that altcoin has solved the scaling issue of bitcoin?

Well a few days ago, back when it was $130 per coin I recommended LTC.  It's now over $300 a few days later. 

being profitable is one thing being a proper cryptocurrency is another. if profit is the factor you care about them there are 1000 altcoin that can satisfy that.

The reason I like it is because it is basically a Bitcoin clone that has integrated more scalability at the outset.

that only increases capacity by factor of 4 (2.5 min blocks versus 10 min) it is unfortunately not a good solution for scaling. and as far as I know it was never meant for that. they decreased the block time to increase the speed of confirmation.
it also comes at the cost of 4 times bigger blockchain. imagine if bitcoin had 2.5 blocks the blockchain would have been 700 GB instead of current 175 GB

I also like the lead developer who has a good reputation.  In contrast, one of the things I've never liked about Bitcoin from many years ago when I first learned about it was that it was developed probably by a group that claimed to be a single individual...and they've completely disappeared, leaving a custodian to manage it.  This raised many red flags with me. 

a decentralized and open source project should not have a single developer or a single team that everyone looks up to. that defeats the purpose of this whole thing. in my opinion Satoshi going away is actually a good thing.

I was actually following Litecoin for a few months before I actually wrote it out as something to buy.  The reason I started really paying attention to it was after seeing the fees and transaction delays spiral out of control with the last run-up of $9000 of Bitcoin.

the same can happen to litecoin too. decreasing block time is not solving the scaling issue. the fact that it has not happened yet in LTC is because it is not being used remotely as much as bitcoin.

The fact that Steam dropped Bitcoin and started accepting LTC

Steam is NOT accepting LTC!

added a lot of potential in my mind.  Personally I believe that Litecoin won't see scaling problems even if it becomes much larger than BTC. 
The other coins that I like, now more than ever, are Dash and Bitcoin Cash.  Now that BTC is having the problems that it is having, suddenly BCH seems like the logical successor...

you still have not explained "why"! just believing that they can is not enough.
all of these coins are based on the same technology. they have bigger blocks, shorter time between blocks,... but in the end they all have a limited size block to X bytes. and at some point that X is going to be filled if their adoption grows.
bitcoin can process ~ 3 tx/sec
LTC is 4 times faster ~ 12 tx/sec
BCH is 8 times faster ~24 tx/sec
not sure about Dash
but none of these can compete with the adoption because you can not have unlimited block size or for example 1 GB blocks.
VISA handles on average around 2,000 transactions per second!

and increasing this number is easy in theory but in reality it will bring about a lot of problems. you can see one of them in ethereum. you can no longer fully sync with the network from scratch. it is a HUGE blockchain over a slow network.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

Overall I still don't understand the blind loyalty to BTC.

that is what I have been trying to tell you. it is not blind loyalty, it is the fact that altcoins are not really better.

there are cool projects that nobody even hears about. like IOTA and ByteBall. but you wouldn't have even heard of them if IOTA was not pumped like how it is right now. they also have issues of their own FYI!

[godz_illa]

I believe it is because of: 1. BTC was the first cryptocurrency, and it is legendary; 2. crowd thinking: If others buy it, I will buy it too; 3. there are a lot of scams around, and BTC is the least possible to end up being a scam, while other, smaller cryptocurrencies have a higher chance.

[machinek20]

It is not brand loyalty but we are thinking rational, bitcoin is dominating the market, most of the coins can be traded with bitcoin, so its mean a lot of people will used bitcoin for trading, so bitcoin is not that easy to dead and bitcoin is adopted in Japan while other crypto still try to look for investors, so keeping bitcoin gives more secure and advantage for the investors

[Realist247]

Even some merchants and vendors have dumped Bitcoin in favor of other cryptos.  Most know of the STEAM example.

they stopped accepting bitcoin but not for other cryptos, they are not foolish enough to add another altcoin that nobody even uses. it is not worth the hassle.
and in case you missed it, steam was using bitpay to accept bitcoin payments and bitpay doesn't accept any other altcoin so that is a no no right there

besides I would love to hear your thoughts. for example what altcoin do you suggest we start using? and please explain why and also how that altcoin has solved the scaling issue of bitcoin?

Well a few days ago, back when it was $130 per coin I recommended LTC.  It's now over $300 a few days later. 

being profitable is one thing being a proper cryptocurrency is another. if profit is the factor you care about them there are 1000 altcoin that can satisfy that.

The reason I like it is because it is basically a Bitcoin clone that has integrated more scalability at the outset.

that only increases capacity by factor of 4 (2.5 min blocks versus 10 min) it is unfortunately not a good solution for scaling. and as far as I know it was never meant for that. they decreased the block time to increase the speed of confirmation.
it also comes at the cost of 4 times bigger blockchain. imagine if bitcoin had 2.5 blocks the blockchain would have been 700 GB instead of current 175 GB

I also like the lead developer who has a good reputation.  In contrast, one of the things I've never liked about Bitcoin from many years ago when I first learned about it was that it was developed probably by a group that claimed to be a single individual...and they've completely disappeared, leaving a custodian to manage it.  This raised many red flags with me. 

a decentralized and open source project should not have a single developer or a single team that everyone looks up to. that defeats the purpose of this whole thing. in my opinion Satoshi going away is actually a good thing.

I was actually following Litecoin for a few months before I actually wrote it out as something to buy.  The reason I started really paying attention to it was after seeing the fees and transaction delays spiral out of control with the last run-up of $9000 of Bitcoin.

the same can happen to litecoin too. decreasing block time is not solving the scaling issue. the fact that it has not happened yet in LTC is because it is not being used remotely as much as bitcoin.

The fact that Steam dropped Bitcoin and started accepting LTC

Steam is NOT accepting LTC!

added a lot of potential in my mind.  Personally I believe that Litecoin won't see scaling problems even if it becomes much larger than BTC. 
The other coins that I like, now more than ever, are Dash and Bitcoin Cash.  Now that BTC is having the problems that it is having, suddenly BCH seems like the logical successor...

you still have not explained "why"! just believing that they can is not enough.
all of these coins are based on the same technology. they have bigger blocks, shorter time between blocks,... but in the end they all have a limited size block to X bytes. and at some point that X is going to be filled if their adoption grows.
bitcoin can process ~ 3 tx/sec
LTC is 4 times faster ~ 12 tx/sec
BCH is 8 times faster ~24 tx/sec
not sure about Dash
but none of these can compete with the adoption because you can not have unlimited block size or for example 1 GB blocks.
VISA handles on average around 2,000 transactions per second!

and increasing this number is easy in theory but in reality it will bring about a lot of problems. you can see one of them in ethereum. you can no longer fully sync with the network from scratch. it is a HUGE blockchain over a slow network.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

Overall I still don't understand the blind loyalty to BTC.

that is what I have been trying to tell you. it is not blind loyalty, it is the fact that altcoins are not really better.

there are cool projects that nobody even hears about. like IOTA and ByteBall. but you wouldn't have even heard of them if IOTA was not pumped like how it is right now. they also have issues of their own FYI!

You are missing the big picture here.  Rather than go through all the points and elaborate further...or admit to how I read that LTC was being accepted by Steam in a news release (fake news?  I remember reading it in Wired or something....) and I could be wrong...let's get down to the here and now.

My point is that many people here have done very well with Bitcoin.  Wonderful.  But right now it's in trouble and it's spinning it's proverbial wheels.  AGAIN...the big picture:  I believe it would be wise for those currently holding Bitcoin to move their money into other cryptos that are CURRENTLY not facing the same problems and are CURRENTLY and/or in the past year have given BETTER returns and still have a lot of room to grow before they may or may not face the same problems.  At a later date, they can always move some or all of their holdings back into Bitcoin if or when it solves the problems that it is now facing.

You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be.  Lots of long time HODLers are stressed.  What I am suggesting might be a wise short to mid-term solution.  I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know the future.  But what I do know is that most people are in this for the money and the price needs to go to $32K before they receive 100% on their current positions.  If the scaling problems aren't solved by then the fees will be what....$100 to buy a cup of coffee?  No one is going to invest in something like that.

Finally yes it is blind loyalty.  Maybe not in your case, but you know full well that most people posting on this forum treat Bitcoin like a cult and they attack anyone that raises the slightest question or idea that goes against their very rigid and narrow world view.

[Realist247]

I believe it is because of: 1. BTC was the first cryptocurrency, and it is legendary; 2. crowd thinking: If others buy it, I will buy it too; 3. there are a lot of scams around, and BTC is the least possible to end up being a scam, while other, smaller cryptocurrencies have a higher chance.

Most products throughout history that were first do not remain on top for long.  Bitcoin has had an incredible run, but being first has its downsides...like all of the flaws and limitations are coming out.  Whether or not other competing altcoins will experience the same problems remains to be seen but to new investors the biggest concern will be to choose the coin that has the most utility in the here and now.

Crowd thinking - that only works until people realize that there are other options.  Even in the mainstream news articles lately the author will usually mention alt-coins by their names as options for new investors to consider.  They never did that before...or at least not like they do now.

As far as scams go, there are countless people that wanted to get into Bitcoin this year but had no idea how.  So they asked friends that referred them to someone that was pooling money to supposedly invest as a group....to leave the hard part of buying to them.  Of course these people are taking their money and running or buying the coins and then disappearing 99 times out of 100.

If you are talking about scams related to alt-coins, the odds of the top 20-30 coins are probably equally legitimate relative to one another.  Note:  That statement doesn't prove or disprove that any or all of them are or are not ripping users off somehow either now or in the future.  So it's up to the individual to interpret what is legitimate about the whole cryptosphere and what is shady.

[ashfer]

Well so many people are devoted on bitcoins as compared to other alt coins and lite coins the answer is simple btc is the only digital currency which is ranking high in the market value and its market rate is pumping higher than any of the crypto currencies hence its normal for people to be devoted toward something which has higher value and something which gives them huge profit its normal human tendency to make an investment on something with huge returns.

[Twentyonepaylots]

The reason why so many people are investing or patronizing bitcoin is because its market value is much higher than the other cryptos and the profit that bitcoin gives is very high too.

[Snub]

I think, that this is just fanaticism...there are many other worthy coins indeed, but some people can't even admit it

[Faroxx]

You know what it is, today there are more than 1,500 different coins and 95% of them are shitcoins. If you do not pay attention to it, this shit will have a negative impact on the really nice coins and all crypto community. We're talking about, BitConect is an outright scam, but it is in the top 20 capitalization!!!

[ace9989]

Bitcoin is the first and like a god father on all of the cryptocurrency that are present today because if there's no bitcoin there no altcoin also.

[faceoff97]

It's called the pioneer advantage. There's hardly any coin pitching without mentioning BTC and it's success.
BTC is the crypto standard.

This is true, bitcoin have gain credibility over the year and also been established really well. Probably, bitcoin will have big transaction fee but surely still will attract people becaise of tremendous growth and unique technology from any other coin. Its pretty sute that bitcoin will continue gain popularity and demand because its is the most known crypto currency. Indeed, bitcoin is the standard of all newly made coins.

[MakersONE]

Because whichever way you are, the price of all alternative coins depends on the price of bitcoin. And a part of your deposit should always be kept in the main currency. It does not matter what happens to it today, if tomorrow it will still grow.