Will the Altcoin bubble collapse?

[Nullu]

There seem to be several alt coins released a day, now. So many coins infact that I've given up keeping track of them. A lot of them appear to be shallow instamine pump-and-dump coins, with very few offering anything unique. Even the names are becoming more banal.  

Fish Coin? I mean no offence, but come on..

Is this a trend or a bubble? To me it is most definitely a bubble. A lot of altcoins now seem to solely exist to make the devs rich and the instaminers who trade them off the most well off, leaving the coin pretty much worthless, and with little chance of ever hitting an exhange. I don't mind so much. In any capitalist system there have to be winners and losers, but isn't it just going to get to a point where even the newbies buying up new altcoins will be spread so thin that there'll no longer be any profit in instamine dumping?

And when the bubble does pop, what are we left with? There are some interesting coins out there, and some so blatantly a scam that it's almost depressing to watch the scrambling in the vain hope that *this* coin will be the one that makes a fortune.

I've only been here a few weeks, but it does look very much like a rat race now. I'm wondering if this will continue indefinitely, or if there will come a point that the hashing power will just be spread too thin, which unfortunately I think is more likely to kill off coins with genuine unique aspects and long-term profitability as it becomes a daily rush to mine the next new altcoin to palm off as soon as possible.

[Reece523]

Probably at some point. Only question is when. I was sure Bitcoin was in a bubble when it first hit $200. Now I really wish I had bought those "bubble Bitcoins". It doesn't hurt to throw money you can afford to lose in some speculative investments. The returns many altcoins have seen since November put even Bitcoin to shame.

[black_swan]

Usually after bubble it gets worst but altcoin are released all the time.
Some of them are premined scam, others instamine, others legit perhaps.
It will continue indefinitely, choose wisely :-)

[duuuuude]

in all market bubbles burst, the question is have you prepared yourself for it.


j

[carajillu]

Another question is: Do you consider LTC as an ALT?

[usahero]

Another question is: Do you consider LTC as an ALT?

LTC is THE ALTcoin

[gnode]

I think you are forgetting a very important point.

Until a coin gets on an exchange it is basically worthless. If a coin gets on some exchange other than cryptsy it is on life support. Only when a coin gets on cryptsy does it have a chance to prosper and that is not a given.

So there is a culling process in place.

With that said, there are ways to make money each step of the way if you can pick the winners. But picking the winners is not easy.

None of this has anything to do with a "bubble" or with bitcoin or litecoin.

If thousands of alt coins were issued every day would more end up on crypsty? I doubt it.

The problem is if thousands were issued every day it would be that much harder to guess which would get on cryptsy.

[Mr.V]

one thing that I learned is that even scam coins can make you money. Megacoin taught me that. When it first launched I could have bought it for .000002btc, but there were a few ppl that mined Millions in the first couple days so I didn't invest, I came back here 6months later and Megacoin was worth $1 WTF was up with tht haha

[gnode]

one thing that I learned is that even scam coins can make you money. Megacoin taught me that. When it first launched I could have bought it for .000002btc, but there were a few ppl that mined Millions in the first couple days so I didn't invest, I came back here 6months later and Megacoin was worth $1 WTF was up with tht haha

this is true but you forgot to mention one important detail. Between the date of launch and when you checked on it 6 months later, it was listed on cryptsy! Cryptsy for better or worse is the king maker of coins.

[Reece523]

Cryptsy is a godsend for altcoins.

It seems the more coins they add, the more their values increase. There has been a dip since the beginning of December but aside from that we are going ahead strong!

one thing that I learned is that even scam coins can make you money. Megacoin taught me that. When it first launched I could have bought it for .000002btc, but there were a few ppl that mined Millions in the first couple days so I didn't invest, I came back here 6months later and Megacoin was worth $1 WTF was up with tht haha

this is true but you forgot to mention one important detail. Between the date of launch and when you checked on it 6 months later, it was listed on cryptsy!

[gnode]

I agree 100%.

[tk808]

In a few weeks to months the amount of new altcoins out will make your head spin. Consider these the golden days of a small amount of altcoins.

You are 100% about the golden days, the entry into the alt-coin market is non-existant. 1-2 years from now, their will be a $$ barrier to launch and market a new coin.

This in turn, will make several alt-coins now highly popular and valuable.

[carajillu]

I think you are forgetting a very important point.

Until a coin gets on an exchange it is basically worthless. If a coin gets on some exchange other than cryptsy it is on life support. Only when a coin gets on cryptsy does it have a chance to prosper and that is not a given.

So there is a culling process in place.

With that said, there are ways to make money each step of the way if you can pick the winners. But picking the winners is not easy.

None of this has anything to do with a "bubble" or with bitcoin or litecoin.

If thousands of alt coins were issued every day would more end up on crypsty? I doubt it.

The problem is if thousands were issued every day it would be that much harder to guess which would get on cryptsy.

Crypstsy? I don't even use that.

[MicroGuy]

Another question is: Do you consider LTC as an ALT?

I consider BTC an altcoin.

[Reece523]

Cryptsy can choose at whatever point they want to start severely restricting the number of new altcoins they accept. This may very well increase the price of existing altcoins as more and more people become exposed to altcoins thanks to new altcoin startups and then look to invest their money in altcoins which aren't entirely speculative (e.g. because they are listed on Cryptsy and thus develop a real market or at least have a real opportunity to do so).

[Kungfucheez]

I think you are forgetting a very important point.

Until a coin gets on an exchange it is basically worthless. If a coin gets on some exchange other than cryptsy it is on life support. Only when a coin gets on cryptsy does it have a chance to prosper and that is not a given.

So there is a culling process in place.

With that said, there are ways to make money each step of the way if you can pick the winners. But picking the winners is not easy.

None of this has anything to do with a "bubble" or with bitcoin or litecoin.

If thousands of alt coins were issued every day would more end up on crypsty? I doubt it.

The problem is if thousands were issued every day it would be that much harder to guess which would get on cryptsy.

Crypstsy? I don't even use that.

It's because I believe Cryptsy just started to get in the whole alt-coin market earlier in the year and decided to add a shit load of alt-coins to it's exchange, and since then has been adding more all the time.

Many people dislike Cryptsy, many like it, but for better or worse, it's the best place the new miners get to dump their coins and exchange it for btc. No other exchange even has near the amount of coins they do to trade. So it's not like many people really even have a choice

[hvezdasmrti]

simply said:

90 percent of coins are shitcoins and will be purged
 9 remaining percent are coins which get some community and popularity, surviving for a longer time and being really used for trading and not only for speculative bubbling
 1 remaining percent is litecoin... The slowest and most obsolete altcoin...

From the new coins i think only 1 - 2 can be among the 9 percent cathegory. Earthcoin and maybe dogecoin. Or just none.

But you could not be unhappy from altcoin spamming, the market is working and if something appears worthless it always gets out of any value. IF there are 100 coins and 99 appear useless, you still will get huge profit at the one which will succeed. Thats why people still jump into new bubbles. Many of them take it as a hazardous game - we will buy shitloads of cheap coins and hope the pyramid wont fall until we get out. Dont forget that there is still empty seat for "bronze" coin with fast transactions which will be finally usable for microtransactions and fast payments which can be finally utilized for shopping as visa-card alternative. BTC even LTC are slow as hell. E. G. earthcoin with diff retarget every block is showing us a way (its really fast compared to other coins).

[Reece523]

That's the thing -- if someone spread their money around, say, 0.1 BTC in every cryptocurrency listed on CoinMarketCap.com at the start of November, the have achieved an ROI that far outstrips that which Bitcoin has achieved over the same timeframe. The thing is, it's impossible to be sure which coin is going to go up so the only real way to be sure you will pick the winners (should there be more) is to invest in all of them. If I had to pick a loser 3 weeks ago, I would have said DOGE and look at it now. I didn't understand the whole meme thing but clearly other members of BitcoinTalk.com did.

simply said:

90 percent of coins are shitcoins and will be purged
 9 remaining percent are coins which get some community and popularity, surviving for a longer time and being really used for trading and not only for speculative bubbling
 1 remaining percent is litecoin... The slowest and most obsolete altcoin...

From the new coins i think only 1 - 2 can be among the 9 percent cathegory. Earthcoin and maybe dogecoin. Or just none.

But you could not be unhappy from altcoin spamming, the market is working and if something appears worthless it always gets out of any value. IF there are 100 coins and 99 appear useless, you still will get huge profit at the one which will succeed. Thats why people still jump into new bubbles. Many of them take it as a hazardous game - we will buy shitloads of cheap coins and hope the pyramid wont fall until we get out. Dont forget that there is still empty seat for "bronze" coin with fast transactions which will be finally usable for microtransactions and fast payments which can be finally utilized for shopping as visa-card alternative. BTC even LTC are slow as hell. E. G. earthcoin with diff retarget every block is showing us a way (its really fast compared to other coins).

[hypostatization]

I am more worried about small scale mining collapsing as a result.

[atp1916]

Altcoins will never collapse.

They are a way around the mining difficulties of LTC / BTC.