Newbies, stay away from altcoins. please

[Phrenico]

I don't see more than one cryptocoin coexisting as an equilibrium state. Because they are all similar, the tiebreaker will always be a coin's stability, and thus, market cap. At the other extreme, I think physical money is sufficiently different that it may take a while to be displaced.

[ushuai]

Just giving you a heads up, 99% of the alt coins are a waste of time and do not fulfill the main concept of the digital currency concept.

I agree one must be careful, but I also believe many of the alt-coins of today will be mainstream digital currencies of the future. The difficult bit is knowing which ones will prevail.  Many will come and go quickly, and some will be around for decades... or more.

[zbx]

@ninjatflex, Mastercoins aren't mined. See the Mastercoin whitepaper (https://sites.google.com/site/2ndbtcwpaper).

[kneim]

It's too easy to call all altcoins crap. Yes, 99% are crap. But there will be development, and it's hard work to find the 1% of innovative altcoins that have a chance.

If you don't want to consume too much time, then only buy Bitcoins.

If you buy altcoins to get rich quick, you already have lost.

And give not too much on volatility. Your win or loss is only on the trade itself, not on the exchange rate.

[MelodyRowell]

It's too easy to call all altcoins crap. Yes, 99% are crap. But there will be development, and it's hard work to find the 1% of innovative altcoins that have a chance.

If you don't want to consume too much time, then only buy Bitcoins.

If you buy altcoins to get rich quick, you already have lost.

And give not too much on volatility. Your win or loss is only on the trade itself, not on the exchange rate.

Only buy alt-coin that has already stabilized, like Litecoin and primecoin. High chance that investor can make some money..

[gjgjg]

Agreed most alts will not give us much prospects in the long run but to say they are all doomed is just rubbish. Theres a lot of potential  for ltc and room for at least one more in the long term altcoin ecosystem. Mainly because BTC mining is all but dead for those who have anything less than Thash power, and the BTC price will probably end up being $500 once it becomes entirely mainstream: like amazon accepting it, or airlines for in flight purchases and 'Wall st' investors start sniffing around.... and once those serious 'Wall st' investors start publicly putting some backing into the cryptocoin world, they will want to make some serious returns- too late to do that with BTC so the non-BTC coins are where they will look.

Granted, once BTC gets mainstream there will prob be a lot of serious pressure on the other alt coins to go away (like BTC scrypt, god help it). So it wont just be a case of how many miners and forum 'likes' anymore, but some proper corp-political like lobbyists will start throwing weight around. But now that China is keeping an eye on LTC, it wont go away as easily as the others and this leaves the door open for more than 'just BTC' long term scenario.

Like 'real life' minerals and metals: gold (BTC)is everyones favourite, but theres plenty to be said for silver (LTC) and even iron (insert coin of choice).

[payb.tc]

China is keeping an eye on LTC

citation?

[Mitchell]

Well I earned quite a bit trading Altcoins and riding the wave. Everybody can earn a bit if they know how a market works.

[dustofdeath]

And hows that an advice for newbies?

Bitcoins are not for normal people anymore. You will only lose money unless you have hughe budget to get specialized  ASIC miner farms.  Or tons of money to do real trading  for profit.
THE sha approach killed bitcoins - at least script doesnt have specialized megahardware to abuse the mining.

So in short .. .bitcoin is controlled by large shareholders and peopel with lots of money - in a way it has failed as a digital currency.

[Birdy]

And hows that an advice for newbies?

Bitcoins are not for normal people anymore. You will only lose money unless you have hughe budget to get specialized  ASIC miner farms.  Or tons of money to do real trading  for profit.
THE sha approach killed bitcoins - at least script doesnt have specialized megahardware to abuse the mining.

So in short .. .bitcoin is controlled by large shareholders and peopel with lots of money - in a way it has failed as a digital currency.

If any scrypt coin gets large enough, there will be Asics for it. Will you call the coin dead once again and move to the next one?
Mining is as important for normal Bitcoin users as logistic companies that transport gold are for gold users.

[SevenFlowers]

There are a few fundamental issues I see with both sides of this argument. Those of you fanatically advocating Bitcoin seem to fail to realize that it is not a perfect implementation of a cryptocurrency - nor was it intended to be. Personally, I feel it was meant to be a trailblazer. Satoshi knew his system wasn't perfect. He just opened the door for further innovation.

While I may be relatively new to the cryptocurrency game and certainly don't have a load of capital to back myself up, I find that it's worth diversifying into a few alt coins. Take Primecoin, for example - the method by which it determines proof-of-work is a great demonstration of how mining can also be used for other things. Prime numbers are used as part of security measures for information systems, after all. Finding different primes that could be of possible use for this purpose seems like a solid idea to me, and I'm willing to place stock in it.

That's just my two cents as a newbie, at least. I hold some BTC, LTC, WDC, and XPM.

[dustofdeath]

ehm.. no. ASIC miners are for SHA based currencies. most altcoisn are scrypt - and only cpu and gpu farms work for it - ASIC is worthless there.

Bitcoins main failure is the SHA - which favors expensive  and specialized hardware.

[rampalija]

THIS topicx is not right, u are ditching altcoins

[madman4bit]

i have heard a lot people earning good on trading alt coin

Alt coins can be used for trading as they tend to be more volatile and easier to mine, but do not hold for the long term.

[rampalija]

i have heard a lot people earning good on trading alt coin

Alt coins can be used for trading as they tend to be more volatile and easier to mine, but do not hold for the long term.

you are wrong man, i earn a couple of BTCs trading and holding the alts

[lysolcargo]

Not all altcoins are awful, just trade carefully and it will be profitable for some.

[payb.tc]

just trade carefully and it will be profitable for some.

some = the exchanges, and holders of mcxfee

[BitcoinHeroes]

Investing in some of the altcoins might have better gain then Bitcoin right now as the price has already gone up so much. Keep in mind the risk is higher also

[jawnzer]

I wouldn't put heavy amounts of money into any alt coin, but would put a couple bucks into Litecoin.

[btcton]

I would say invest your time and money in bitcoin and if you want to, play the tradin game with altcoins.