Debunking the "anyone can make a crypto" argument against Bitcoin

[jseverson]

If everyone were held to what they once said, we'd get nowhere. Litecoin has contributed a lot to Bitcoin as well, and in no small part due to the good relationships between the devs. Bitcoin may never have needed all that Lightning Network and atomic swap testing on Litecoin but I'm sure every success Litecoin's ever had was only good learning steps for Bitcoin.

Anyone can make a crypto... that's actually part of the beauty of Bitcoin. You're free to do as you wish with the code. Free to improve on it, change it, attempt to create your own value on it. Hundreds have tried, hundreds will continue to try. Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

Oh, I wasn't saying Litecoin is bad. I like it, actually. I was simply making fun of its redundancy, having basically the same roadmap as Bitcoin, and its meme reputation as a testnet. It's a great alternative and I would hold it before ETH or any other altcoin, but I also believe that people won't need alternatives that do pretty much the exact same things Bitcoin does at some point in the future. People are completely free to create coins, fork, and use open source code, and are likewise free to call anything they want shit. I don't think Litecoin is shit, but it very well could be once Bitcoin matures.

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[buwaytress]

If everyone were held to what they once said, we'd get nowhere. Litecoin has contributed a lot to Bitcoin as well, and in no small part due to the good relationships between the devs. Bitcoin may never have needed all that Lightning Network and atomic swap testing on Litecoin but I'm sure every success Litecoin's ever had was only good learning steps for Bitcoin.

Anyone can make a crypto... that's actually part of the beauty of Bitcoin. You're free to do as you wish with the code. Free to improve on it, change it, attempt to create your own value on it. Hundreds have tried, hundreds will continue to try. Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

Oh, I wasn't saying Litecoin is bad. I like it, actually. I was simply making fun of its redundancy, having basically the same roadmap as Bitcoin, and its meme reputation as a testnet. It's a great alternative and I would hold it before ETH or any other altcoin, but I also believe that people won't need alternatives that do pretty much the exact same things Bitcoin does at some point in the future. People are completely free to create coins, fork, and use open source code, and are likewise free to call anything they want shit. I don't think Litecoin is shit, but it very well could be once Bitcoin matures.

Yeah, I got that... heh. I sometimes wonder if all that testnet reputation got a bit too condescending for Charlie Lee, leading him to eventually sell off all his coins.

You're definitely right though about almost all altcoins doing pretty much the same thing Bitcoin already does or will do - just dressed up in fancier sounding tech that hasn't and will never get the opportunities to withstand the tests of demand and network stress.

I'm Bitcoin first and I'm not even sure I'm anything else second, but I rather think that when Bitcoin truly matures, it can only strengthen alts by showing them the way - much like how almost any national currency is a copy of the original, but still find their own place. So maybe you're right... if today's forex world sees anything outside the USD/EUR/GBP/CHF as shit currencies... I suppose one day Bitcoiners would also see alts with the same disdain, whether or not they attain significant use.

[Samarkand]

...
Yeah, I got that... heh. I sometimes wonder if all that testnet reputation got a bit too condescending for Charlie Lee, leading him to eventually sell off all his coins.
...

Charlie Lee sold pretty much at the top near the Litecoin ATH. This makes you wonder, whether
he knew something that the average investor didn´t know. It just looks pretty suspicious if you manage
to sell an asset that you own for several years right at the peak.

Besides, his former involvement at Coinbase and the subsequent listing of Litecoin
at Coinbase should be regarded somewhat sceptically. Would LTC have ever been added
to Coinbase if Charlie Lee didn´t work there? There is a decent possibility that he and
several other insiders that knew in advance that LTC was going to be listed at Coinbase made
a killing due to this insider information.

[djpitagora]

I have decided to make another post in order to debunk one of the common
arguments against Bitcoin.

If you are interested in another thread where I tried to do something similar, take
a look at my recent thread:
Debunking the waste of energy argument against Bitcoin

Today I´d like to debunk the argument that "anyone can make their own crypto" or its variations
like "anyone can print as many as they want".

Here are a few reasons why Bitcoin can´t be copied easily:
1. Even the well-funded fork attempts of Bitcoin Cash and SegWit2x either didn´t materialize at all
or were a complete failure... Bitcoin Cash is processing less transactions than Dogecoin every 24 hours
2. While it may be easy to copy the code of Bitcoin due to it being Open Source it is incredibly difficult
to actually get people to use your cryptocurrency... just take a look at the dozens of "ghost blockchains" of altcoins that see no real
usage
3. A product like Coca Cola that is widely popular today faced competition by more than 7000 knock-offs and still is
the most popular choice among the general public today (I concede that Coca Cola and Bitcoin are not directly comparable)
4. It is incredibly hard to launch a successful cryptocurrency in an ethical manner without a pre-mine or similar antics given
the huge competition by well-funded projects that invest more time and money into marketing than into development
5. Bitcoin has the best developers and due to the importance of security this makes it essentially impossible for other
coins to dethrone Bitcoin... many of the Bitcoin Core developers are financially independent (due to Bitcoin!*) and are working on Bitcoin
for ideological reasons, which are a far better motivation than extrinsical motivation in the form of money
6. Bitcoin has no centralized point of failure while most other projects would suffer tremendously in the case of the
death of a key person of the respective project (e.g. if Vitalik would die in a car crash tomorrow the Ethereum project
would suffer). This is even worse for the huge amount of projects with a single lead developer.
...


I´m curious to hear what you think about my arguments and of course it would be great
if you could add additional arguments.





* I remember reading a quote by one of the Bitcoin Core developers where he stated
something along the lines of "Bitcoin has taken care of me, now I´m taking care of it".
How can you seriously expect to beat someone with an attitude like this?

I'm going to debunk a few of your points

1. Even the well-funded fork attempts of Bitcoin Cash and SegWit2x either didn´t materialize at all
or were a complete failure... Bitcoin Cash is processing less transactions than Dogecoin every 24 hours

That's because it brings nothing new on the table. It's just a copy. Of course it failed. Point is there are about 1000 coins out there, and most of them are easy copies. Those will fail. Then there are many that are not copies and improved things a lot, but will still fail because people don't understand the improvements. In the end only a couple will survive, and at least a some will beat bitcoin. There are so many great things out there I'd like to think the world is smarter then that.

2. While it may be easy to copy the code of Bitcoin due to it being Open Source it is incredibly difficult
to actually get people to use your cryptocurrency... just take a look at the dozens of "ghost blockchains" of altcoins that see no real
usage

You are right here. People are incredibly sheepish and rarely see the real value in all the hype

3. A product like Coca Cola that is widely popular today faced competition by more than 7000 knock-offs and still is
the most popular choice among the general public today (I concede that Coca Cola and Bitcoin are not directly comparable)

Was any of the knockoffs better then Coca Cola? No. Most focused on getting it cheaper. Then this is a failed comparison.

4. It is incredibly hard to launch a successful cryptocurrency in an ethical manner without a pre-mine or similar antics given
the huge competition by well-funded projects that invest more time and money into marketing than into development

Yet there are some but were launched very ethicly. Of course most people don't because it's all about money, but lets not forget BTC pre-mine was/is huge. Just because it's sitting there it doesn't mean the keys are lost...

5. Bitcoin has the best developers and due to the importance of security this makes it essentially impossible for other
coins to dethrone Bitcoin... many of the Bitcoin Core developers are financially independent (due to Bitcoin!*) and are working on Bitcoin
for ideological reasons, which are a far better motivation than extrinsical motivation in the form of money

you clearly don't understand opensource. You don't need to be financialy independant to code opensource software, just passionate about something. There are millions of open source projects around the world, made by people with jobs as well. I too have a job and in my free time contribute to various projects. I don't expect any financial gain from them.

6. Bitcoin has no centralized point of failure while most other projects would suffer tremendously in the case of the
death of a key person of the respective project (e.g. if Vitalik would die in a car crash tomorrow the Ethereum project
would suffer). This is even worse for the huge amount of projects with a single lead developer.

In terms of development no, but then again it's the same case with other large projects like Monero.
In the end out of 1000 projects, not all have to "die" so that BTC looses it's throne. Just a few need to succeed and not get hit by a car.

Also speaking of single point of failures, more then 50% of worlds processing power is in china and controlled by 4 companies. If these 4 people decided BTC is over, or China's president did, .... now that's a huge point of failure.