So you want your altcoin to go up again? Use it!

[d5000]

Altcoins have lost a lot of value in the last days.

That is not surprising: Most of them are used only as speculative assets. So people pump and dump them without limits, because their only function is to get profits from trading.

If you want your altcoin to grow sustainably, then you must use it as a currency!

Every time a coin is accepted as a payment means, a connection to the "real economy" is built, and the coin's value is backed by real goods and services, at least for some time. This is true even if you use a payment processor - then it's the payment processor that will "back" your coin and takes the risk while he waits for payments.

The more merchants and payment processors backing your coin, the less danger there will be that it crashes. It won't be a instant process, but it's worth it.

Don't wait for magic partnerships and other "news". YOU can contribute to your coin's organic growth.

- Buy your online stuff with the coin. There are lots of altcoins supported by payment processors like CoinPayments, Coingate, Bitpay, Bitpagos/Ripio and so on. Coinpayments has a Store directory, but there are also independent projects like Virtual Coin Squad.
- If you are a merchant or provide services, accept your altcoin instead of buying it at exchanges. Consider accepting it without intermediaries, but if you're risk-averse, then a payment processor is totally OK.
- If you are an altcoin developer: Provide easy to use tools for merchants or try to get your coin accepted by a payment processor.
- Even using it for games, micro earnings, faucets and gambling contributes to the coin's use.

[mpufatzis]

This post deserves more than 3 views (so much was when I read it) and should be sticky.

[Elmaistro19]

I totally agree with you..

[D-Fault]

That thread raised a good topic. We all are tired of those coins made for pump and dump only which is discredit the whole cryptocurrency world. Let's do that place at least little bit better.

[d5000]

This post deserves more than 3 views (so much was when I read it) and should be sticky.

Thanks, well, I don't consider it to be worth a sticky - but the fact that it receives so few views is related to what I criticise.
The amount of pump-and-dump-related, total nonsense and spam, FOMO and FUD threads in this sub-forum (and not only this one!) is unfortunately so high that other topics get buried. There is no single technology-related topic on the first page, as of now ... (I'll investigate now and if I find one in the first ~10 pages, it will get merit and if I can contribute to the topic, a comment to reactivate it )

That little interest in real usage is why most altcoins will continue to be simply play money, with an occasional pump. Some people are benefitting from that situation, without doubt - but I bet that most people, in the long term, will lose and "hold the bag" of some worthless cryptocurrency not used at all.

But even "bagholders" can "revive" an altcoin if they find some interesting use for it.

(I really should retake this little investigation about altcoins' real usage - one year ago even most major (top-10) altcoins were barely used as a currency.)