Whats the point of all these ALT CRYPTOCURRENCIES

[battlescars]

Why do people make their own cryptocurrencies, what can be accomplished by more and more alt cryptocurrency being on the rise.

Most of these currencies have very little value and its hard to exchange them , do people mine them?

thx im just looking to learn.

[wachtwoord]

The vast majority have no purpose whatsoever. Many people are disappointed they found Bitcoin this 'late' (which is ridiculous because it's still early) and try to get rich by scamming newbies into buying their scamcoins.

A few altcoins offer something useful, but nothing gigantic. Proof of Stake by PeerCoin is innovative and another hash algorithm (Litecoin) was too at the time. The thing is that when such things prove to be really advantageous they can just be included into Bitcoin as well.

[battlescars]

oh i see, but how would the owners of alt cryptocurrencies make money? When people mine their coins they make money some how?

and yes i agree this is very early stage of bitcoin!!

[wachtwoord]

Often they pre-mine (award large amounts of coins to themselves in advance). In any case they'll be among the first miners and end up with many coins. They make money by selling these.

[battlescars]

ah yes that makes sense. i see how this works they just hope that the the currency becomes a big hit and people use it.

[mistress_magpie]

Is there any way of measuring how much actual value is in the altcoins?

[MisO69]

Is there any way of measuring how much actual value is in the altcoins?

coinmarketcap.com

[nastybit]

The vast majority have no purpose whatsoever. Many people are disappointed they found Bitcoin this 'late' (which is ridiculous because it's still early) and try to get rich by scamming newbies into buying their scamcoins.

A few altcoins offer something useful, but nothing gigantic. Proof of Stake by PeerCoin is innovative and another hash algorithm (Litecoin) was too at the time. The thing is that when such things prove to be really advantageous they can just be included into Bitcoin as well.

That's absolutely NOT true. Nobody will ever change bitcoin SHA-256 and if the core development decide to do it nobody will follow them.
There are millions and millions invested in ASIC miners, if there is one thing that will never change in bitcoin is PoW SHA-256

[wachtwoord]

The vast majority have no purpose whatsoever. Many people are disappointed they found Bitcoin this 'late' (which is ridiculous because it's still early) and try to get rich by scamming newbies into buying their scamcoins.

A few altcoins offer something useful, but nothing gigantic. Proof of Stake by PeerCoin is innovative and another hash algorithm (Litecoin) was too at the time. The thing is that when such things prove to be really advantageous they can just be included into Bitcoin as well.

That's absolutely NOT true. Nobody will ever change bitcoin SHA-256 and if the core development decide to do it nobody will follow them.
There are millions and millions invested in ASIC miners, if there is one thing that will never change in bitcoin is PoW SHA-256

They will if a flaw in SHA is ever discovered. It's just very unlikely.