... 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?
Of course everyone is free to start their own cryptocurrency (and even allowed to use code from
open source projects like Bitcoin
).
However, you also have to see the downside of the emergence of +1000 different altcoins. Newcomers
are easily led astray by the huge amount of altcoins and the buzzwords that the people behind
these projects use to shill their respective coins. Some newcomers to the cryptocurrency scene may
immediately recognize the unique characteristics of Bitcoin, but many others will jump into
coins that look cheap or are at least well advertised.
How many new Coinbase users did buy into coins like Litecoin (I agree with
the previous post where someone called it a "testnet for Bitcoin) or ETH due to a
lack of knowledge?
Many newcomers gravitate to these projects and become disheartened after losing
their money in various scams, shitcoins or even simply by trading random altcoins and losing
slowly to fees (if they are not victim to market manipulation that is ubiquitous in small cap altcoins).
If you would have entered the cryptocurrency scene in 2012 you would basically be buying BTC and be finished with
your investment and ideally you would also start to expand your knowledge about Bitcoin.
If you enter the cryptocurrency scene in 2017 or 2018 you are bombarded by sleazy marketing
of various altcoins, outright scams, ICOs and various other stuff that is designed to separate you from
your money (or worse, from your Bitcoins!).
I´m not arguing that it is bad to launch a new cryptocurrency, I´m arguing that after thousands of new
projects Bitcoin is still the number #1 and will always be the number #1 for the reasons that I outlined above
(and for the reasons that Torque has added).