Impact of Unrelenting Supply of new Alt-Coins ??

[Triffin]

Is the promise/potential of BitCoin being diluted by the near constant supply of "new" coins ??

I can't believe that there are enough competent/interested developers/community members
willing and able ( capital and/or time ) to support all these new coins..

The pattern I see is that the miners exploit each coin as it's released ..
The devs and initial community pump the virtues of their particular coin hoping
to attract enough buyers/speculators to absorb the miner's dumping ..
Efforts are made to get the coin listed on an exchange/s to facilitate distribution/awareness ..
The slicker the web-site and coin logo and potential development/marketing plans the longer the coin has "buzz" ..

and then it all starts to just fade away  ......... rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat  ad infinitum  

We've got "coins" for every niche and purpose ..
We've got "world' and "earth" coins .. even DOGE and CAT coins .. ( really ?? )
Why not continent?, country?, state?, county?, city?, corporate?, meme?, cause?, personal? coins  .. etc etc ..
Where and when does it end ??

At this point sites like CoinWarz, Coinmarketcap, Cryptsy can't or won't keep up with the constant issuance of new coins ..

After the intial "buzz", miner pump and dump, and loss of interest from speculators and developers alike has played out;
we're left with partially mined coins of dubious merit/utility that die on the vine until or unless a "rehab" crew
comes in and tries for a second round of pump and dump with plans to "revitalize" the XYZ coin etc ..

So how do the rest of you see this playing out ??  

I know we can't prevent people from launching new coins ..
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=450543.0

AND

What to do with the soon to be growing supply of "failed" ones ??


Triff ..

 

[seleme]

Alts are mainly bought with BTC so it is only good for BTC price that they exist. Otherwise lot of these coins would finish on USD market instead being invested in alts

[chessnut]

Is the promise/potential of BitCoin being diluted by the near constant supply of "new" coins ??

I can't believe that there are enough competent/interested developers/community members
willing and able ( capital and/or time ) to support all these new coins..

The pattern I see is that the miners exploit each coin as it's released ..
The devs and initial community pump the virtues of their particular coin hoping
to attract enough buyers/speculators to absorb the miner's dumping ..
Efforts are made to get the coin listed on an exchange/s to facilitate distribution/awareness ..
The slicker the web-site and coin logo and potential development/marketing plans the longer the coin has "buzz" ..

and then it all starts to just fade away  ......... rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat  ad infinitum  

We've got "coins" for every niche and purpose ..
We've got "world' and "earth" coins .. even DOGE and CAT coins .. ( really ?? )
Why not continent?, country?, state?, county?, city?, corporate?, meme?, cause?, personal? coins  .. etc etc ..
Where and when does it end ??

At this point sites like CoinWarz, Coinmarketcap, Cryptsy can't or won't keep up with the constant issuance of new coins ..

After the intial "buzz", miner pump and dump, and loss of interest from speculators and developers alike has played out;
we're left with partially mined coins of dubious merit/utility that die on the vine until or unless a "rehab" crew
comes in and tries for a second round of pump and dump with plans to "revitalize" the XYZ coin etc ..

So how do the rest of you see this playing out ??  

I know we can't prevent people from launching new coins ..

AND

What to do with the soon to be growing supply of "failed" ones ??


Triff ..

 

well you know, the network effect. one would only want a currency that is supported, and one would only support a currency that is wanted. there can be only one facebook, because everyone uses facebook, and nobody has any reason to use facebook 2.0, or Dogebook, because all their friends are on facebook. you will see these alt coins will be no match for bitcoin in the end. though, Dogecoin is looking promising =P

[Kluge]

Mostly, these threads.

[Cubic Earth]

well you know, the network effect. one would only want a currency that is supported, and one would only support a currency that is wanted. there can be only one facebook, because everyone uses facebook, and nobody has any reason to use facebook 2.0, or Dogebook, because all their friends are on facebook. you will see these alt coins will be no match for bitcoin in the end. though, Dogecoin is looking promising =P

There are actually many other "Facebooks".  It tends to be a regional thing.  I don't know them by name, but when I travel outside of the U.S., Facebook's penetration is much less.  People are like "we've got x over here, it's better than Facebook".

Anyway, I have wondered if there could be regional coin where somehow its geographic reach was limited by ping times.  Such a concept I don't think is technically feasible at this point.  The mining would basically be proof of work + proof of geography.  Ping times are the only proof of geography that couldn't be faked, at least that I can think of.  I know, why would people want to use a coin regionally that wasn't accepted elsewhere?  Well, maybe they wouldn't, but there are often strong local movements that have grown increasingly popular as a response to globalization.

[lightfoot]

well you know, the network effect. one would only want a currency that is supported, and one would only support a currency that is wanted. there can be only one facebook, because everyone uses facebook, and nobody has any reason to use facebook 2.0, or Dogebook, because all their friends are on facebook. you will see these alt coins will be no match for bitcoin in the end. though, Dogecoin is looking promising =P

I remember people said that about MySpace. Or was it AOL. Or NetNews.

Go figure.

[gentlemand]

But people didn't have large amounts of money and/ or years of development tied up in them. That makes the prospect of jumping to a new platform a slightly larger decision.

They were just another website out of millions that people latched on to for a while before floating away again on a whim.

[chessnut]

well you know, the network effect. one would only want a currency that is supported, and one would only support a currency that is wanted. there can be only one facebook, because everyone uses facebook, and nobody has any reason to use facebook 2.0, or Dogebook, because all their friends are on facebook. you will see these alt coins will be no match for bitcoin in the end. though, Dogecoin is looking promising =P

There are actually many other "Facebooks".  It tends to be a regional thing.  I don't know them by name, but when I travel outside of the U.S., Facebook's penetration is much less.  People are like "we've got x over here, it's better than Facebook".

Anyway, I have wondered if there could be regional coin where somehow its geographic reach was limited by ping times.  Such a concept I don't think is technically feasible at this point.  The mining would basically be proof of work + proof of geography.  Ping times are the only proof of geography that couldn't be faked, at least that I can think of.  I know, why would people want to use a coin regionally that wasn't accepted elsewhere?  Well, maybe they wouldn't, but there are often strong local movements that have grown increasingly popular as a response to globalization.

yea I guess its not 100% a binary thing, but you must agree there is no equivalent to facebook in size, not for miles. The Winkelvii didnt start facebook 2.0 because even then they were too late. few understand the network effect better than they do.
The development of the alt coins will not be in the same proportions as BTC.

[glendall]

I wrote my own thread about this exact same thing about 6 months or so ago.

All the new coins must leech value from BTC. 

But 'traders gonna trade'.   I just hope they eventually die off.  There has been about 6-10 great coins that came out in the last year, and, what, about 200 unneeded ones.  I still don't even know how or why Doge got so popular. There really isn't anything to it besides a charming mascot as far as I can tell. But hey, it's a free market I guess.

The worst is when an great new coin comes out and its gets ripped off right away though, that bothers me.  Really is easy to copy a coin, really difficult to make an original one with any actual new code. 

[GigaCoin]

Its true, in fact if u noticed speculators just pretty much stopped buying new coins because of miner dumping. Miners have gotten v greedy with multipools causing buyers to loose interest.

Investors are now looking towards POS coins, since IMO greedy miners destroyed speculative buyers. However there r still enough buyers to make the price go up a little but they r fading away slowly with time. Notice how most coins fail to gain any significant rise, even with strong buying. Thats because huge mining pools are too busy dumping coins into buyers. Those days of 10,000x or 100,000x returns are long gone. Currently the winers are the multipool miners but it won't last long

[Cubic Earth]

I'm a bitcoin guy.  I bought 18 months ago and held though everything.  And I continue to keep my bet on the table that bitcoin will dominate.  For a long time I poo-pooed the alt coins as irrational and not really having a chance.  I did pick up a handful of litecoins when they were around $2, just as small hedge.

In the meantime I have come to see some altcoins as having a chance, not because they are well designed or thought out, but because people are by in large, irrational.  People like dogecoin because it is less 'intimidating' than bitcoin.  Maybe so.  People see litecoin as being more affordable.  That's just stupid, considering the true bitcoin unit is the satoshi.  And people like the ability to mine, not because the understand the network security and centralization issues, but because they seem to think mining exists so that people can get free money.  Even though all of these reasons are more or less ridiculous to anyone who really understands what is going on with this technological revolution we have before us, they are still believed by a huge number of people.  Thus, altcoins have life and probably will continue to have life (read: buyers).

Instead of continuing to be annoyed at the situation, I decided to take the plunge and start mining scrypt coins.  Lately I've been going Doge all the way.  I sell all of my Doges once at noon and once at midnight for BTC.  Then I cash out the BTC through Coinbase so that I may recover the fiat I spent on the equipment and electricity.  After the stuff is paid off (I am on track for a 60-day ROI), I may at that point speculate on some alts for fun.  I also wanted to have some hashing power to play with if something truly innovative comes about, perhaps Zerocoin, if it is scrypt-minable.

But yeah, I mine Doge and dump it as fast as I can.  I see it as doing my part to keep Bitcoin in the lead.

[FierceRadish]

...because people are by in large, irrational.  People like dogecoin because it is less 'intimidating' than bitcoin.  Maybe so.  People see litecoin as being more affordable.  That's just stupid, considering the true bitcoin unit is the satoshi. 

It's amazing how many long-term posters and "expert traders" still say that it's impossible to make returns on Bitcoin because "nobody will buy for $1000 a coin" as though that's the only entry sum available.

But this perception is a problem. Maybe Dogecoin's real marketing triumph wasn't in their cuddly dog, but in choosing 100 billion as a maximum number of mined coins. People do seem to love having 100,000's of something, as opposed to 100,000's of a decimal value of something.

[chessnut]

...because people are by in large, irrational.  People like dogecoin because it is less 'intimidating' than bitcoin.  Maybe so.  People see litecoin as being more affordable.  That's just stupid, considering the true bitcoin unit is the satoshi. 

It's amazing how many long-term posters and "expert traders" still say that it's impossible to make returns on Bitcoin because "nobody will buy for $1000 a coin" as though that's the only entry sum available.

But this perception is a problem. Maybe Dogecoin's real marketing triumph wasn't in their cuddly dog, but in choosing 100 billion as a maximum number of mined coins. People do seem to love having 100,000's of something, as opposed to 100,000's of a decimal value of something.

what will change the game is when software developers create wallets that count in satoshis.

[WompRat]

I am optimistic about a future where we trade between multiple crypto currencies that have different purposes and brands. I see no conflict with bitcoin at all. It makes me think that exchange sites like Cryptsy that are not ridiculously biased in favour of any one coin are going to become huge.  Let the market and marketeers duke it out.

How many distributions of Linux are there ?  Each one that has survived has a little bit of market and a bit of niche, some for dev, some for low powered pcs, some for mobile.  Its all good and another clone of debian or Red Hat doesn't hurt anyone. If anything Ubuntu has helped to popularise debian and Linux in general.  

Link to Linux distro map for the answer to the earlier question: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

[An amorous cow-herder]

Its true, in fact if u noticed speculators just pretty much stopped buying new coins because of miner dumping. Miners have gotten v greedy with multipools causing buyers to loose interest.

Investors are now looking towards POS coins, since IMO greedy miners destroyed speculative buyers. However there r still enough buyers to make the price go up a little but they r fading away slowly with time.

This really smells like bullshit. You know what? It doesnt matter how many people are mining, the same number of coins come out anyway. Yes, it doesnt matter how many people mine. Miners would be pretty stupid to mine BTC with gfx cards, right? Doesnt really matter if the miner is interested in getting fiat or BTC, there are better ways then to mine BTC directly ...

[Rub3n]

A good thing they exist? Well i dont see it that way...
If u look at the fact that most alt coins are here just to 'make ppl rich', people are selling their coin for BTC, what will not have any positive effect on the real btc/usd price.
Then they sell the BTC for usd, what does do have a negative effect.

[An amorous cow-herder]

If u look at the fact that most alt coins are here just to 'make ppl rich', people are selling their coin for BTC, what will not have any positive effect on the real btc/usd price.
Then they sell the BTC for usd, what does do have a negative effect.

Ok, so what is the difference if the person buying alts with BTC would have bought fiat with the same amount of BTC instead? Same net effect.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Despite all the new coins, Bitcoin's share of the market remains >90%. (Non-mineables don't count as their market cap is radically indeterminate and grossly inflated.)

[lightfoot]

This really smells like bullshit. You know what? It doesnt matter how many people are mining, the same number of coins come out anyway. Yes, it doesnt matter how many people mine. Miners would be pretty stupid to mine BTC with gfx cards, right? Doesnt really matter if the miner is interested in getting fiat or BTC, there are better ways then to mine BTC directly ...

Sort of does: Miners will take advantage of arbitage situations to make extra money. This is what is pounding catcoin (GO CATCOIN!) which is kind of the way it is.

I upgrade jalapeno miners for bitcoin. At the moment it is still profitable for the end user. When it becomes a loss for the user I will probably stop doing it even if people ask for it. Possibly because I have limits on what I will accept in terms of free money or something. Not sure.

[the_sunship]

IMO not a good idea to try and use logic when it comes to internet memes or "cute" cryptocurrencies.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we'll have different currencies for different interests. BTC will be the serious financial currency/asset, while Doge might be used by others for more "fun" purchases, such as surf gear or petfood.

If BTC is the main financial currency, it will attract that kind of social class and money, while Doge might just be mostly for young adults. That doesn't mean that Doge won't be worth a lot more, but it might not attract the kinds of minds who are investing billions of dollars.

This is just a possibility of course. It does seem that alts are going to have a place, although probably not nearly as financially influential as BTC.