Can there be more than one digital currency?

[bitco.in]

The Bitcoin community is generally supportive of other cryptocurrencies, but once we all transition to digital money, will there be room for multiple currencies?  I came across an article that considers Bitcoin to be the economic singularity, and here is what the author thinks:

Bitcoin is the decentralized digital currency. I say “the,” rather than “a,” because there can only be one. Since decentralized digital currencies rely on computational power to ensure security, the currency with the most computational power is the most secure. If we ever found ourselves with more than one decentralized digital currency, which ever one had more computational resources devoted to it would be the most secure, and thus more people would trust it, and thus more people would use it, and thus it would come to dominate and be the only one. Bitcoin is that currency.

This was written in 2011, of course, and three years later, Litecoin and others are still very much in the public eye.  Is this going to change or is the author missing something in his reasoning?

[lnternet]

I could imagine a future where BTC is only used for big transactions (say $500 or more), LTC is used for medium transactions ($1+), and then micro transactions are done in multiple alts depending on the service. This is stable due to tx fees, like BTC has a $1 tx fee, so wouldn't use it for sending $5, and has strongest hash power.

Just my wild speculation.

Otherwise I don't really see why we would use more than one coin.

[TeseracT]

Sure they could, there are also other aspects that crypto brings, atleast these second gen currencies will have something to offer.

[Undone]

Bitcoin is the decentralized digital currency. I say “the,” rather than “a,” because there can only be one. Since decentralized digital currencies rely on computational power to ensure security, the currency with the most computational power is the most secure. If we ever found ourselves with more than one decentralized digital currency, which ever one had more computational resources devoted to it would be the most secure, and thus more people would trust it, and thus more people would use it, and thus it would come to dominate and be the only one. Bitcoin is that currency.

Until Bitcoin is not that currency, and another coin's hashrate/"computational power"/number of nodes exceeds it.

[hilariousandco]

The Bitcoin community is generally supportive of other cryptocurrencies, but once we all transition to digital money, will there be room for multiple currencies?  I came across an article that considers Bitcoin to be the economic singularity, and here is what the author thinks:

Bitcoin is the decentralized digital currency. I say “the,” rather than “a,” because there can only be one. Since decentralized digital currencies rely on computational power to ensure security, the currency with the most computational power is the most secure. If we ever found ourselves with more than one decentralized digital currency, which ever one had more computational resources devoted to it would be the most secure, and thus more people would trust it, and thus more people would use it, and thus it would come to dominate and be the only one. Bitcoin is that currency.

This was written in 2011, of course, and three years later, Litecoin and others are still very much in the public eye.  Is this going to change or is the author missing something in his reasoning?

It's interesting. There's room for more than one currency - just take a look at the alt coin section now - but is more than one really needed? They just seem completely redundant and are pretty much only created as get rich quick schemes that a lot of fools buy in to.

[Falcooon]

As long as there exists an Alt with algo's that don't have ASICS available for mining there will always be support for it via GPU miners. This is perfect for the small transaction niche as its mostly small time individual miners working in pools keeping the transactions fast and steady.

This is to be contrasted to BTC (or some unforeseen successor) run by large ASIC mining operations that will be the de facto global crypto. 

[pening]

Well the plethora of coins in the alt forum would prove otherwise.  I suppose the actual question is is more than one digital currency needed?  Again, the alt forum suggest there are other niches to be filled (though many are just copies with different parameters).  

However, the argument "which ever one had more computational resources devoted to it would be the most secure" is flawed, as it would still be vulnerable to 51% attack, selfish pools attack or arbitrary regulatory/legal attack.  total computation alone does not make one digital currency more secure than another.  There's a very strong case that a algorithm thats forced to be CPU/GPU based is more secure as the distribution of the computation is as broad as possible.  Bitcoin is heading to a future were only large scale corporate miner farms will be able to afford to be in the network, so vast computation but vulnerable to above attacks.

[empoweoqwj]

Of course there is room for multiple cryto currencies. There are 200+ fiat currencies.

[Erdogan]

Of course there is room for multiple cryto currencies. There are 200+ fiat currencies.

Yes, but why? Because there are 200+ different governments who want to reap the benefits of the printing and credit expansion. If some far away country for instance used Euro as currency, that country would in reality pay the inflation tax to EU.

The importers and exporters would prefer a single currency, obviously, as that would do away with the conversion fees and risk.

If more than one digital currency will survive in the market, those currencies will have different properties, suffiently different to make it worth the hazzle.

[techgeek]

I think specific areas, like "sex coin" for cam sites?

But depending on the name etc.

[byronbb]

The Alts serve almost as a backup to bitcoin. LTC/PPC et al are basically alternatives incase bitcoin has issues with mining centralization, SHA-256, becomes politically corrupted.  Crypto Currency in any of its forms will now forever be a means for collective value creation outside of political and corporate influences. Truly the invention of the Century.

[empoweoqwj]

Of course there is room for multiple cryto currencies. There are 200+ fiat currencies.

Yes, but why? Because there are 200+ different governments who want to reap the benefits of the printing and credit expansion. If some far away country for instance used Euro as currency, that country would in reality pay the inflation tax to EU.

The importers and exporters would prefer a single currency, obviously, as that would do away with the conversion fees and risk.

If more than one digital currency will survive in the market, those currencies will have different properties, suffiently different to make it worth the hazzle.

Of course they will need different properties, that's how 200+ fiat currencies survive. The property in that case is the government that issues them. The properties with cryptos will be innovation-based.

[Bill Bisco]

Competing currencies is an important economic principle and there will continue to be more of them.

[Xav]

Complementary Credit Networks and Macro-Economic Stability: Switzerland’s Wirtschaftsring.

[Erdogan]

Of course there is room for multiple cryto currencies. There are 200+ fiat currencies.

Yes, but why? Because there are 200+ different governments who want to reap the benefits of the printing and credit expansion. If some far away country for instance used Euro as currency, that country would in reality pay the inflation tax to EU.

The importers and exporters would prefer a single currency, obviously, as that would do away with the conversion fees and risk.

If more than one digital currency will survive in the market, those currencies will have different properties, suffiently different to make it worth the hazzle.

Of course they will need different properties, that's how 200+ fiat currencies survive. The property in that case is the government that issues them. The properties with cryptos will be innovation-based.

You seem to ignore the the point; with altcoins, the 200+ governments makes no difference, as none of them can harvest the inflation tax. Some government is not a property of a coin.

[pabloangello]

There are a few main TLDs in domains like: .com .net .org etc.
There are a few main fiat currencies in the world like: Dollar, Euro, YEN, Aussie etc.
There are a few main cryptocurrencies like: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin etc. but in this case Bitcoin is still the one to rull them all couse crypto is still in nearly stage. In the future this reign of one could be replaced into three or four for example.

So answering OP question, yes there can be more than one digital currency.

[Xav]

Monetary diversity - a great presentation by the Belgian professor Bernard Lietaer - Poptech 2011.

[empoweoqwj]

There will soon be another 1,200 or so global TLDs.

The same thing will happen with crypto coins, but probably on a bigger scale. Welcome to the world wide coinage. Can't say WWC, they'd sue me

[hilariousandco]

I think specific areas, like "sex coin" for cam sites?

But depending on the name etc.

This is one of the most stupid ones. Why do we need a separate coin for this? Do we need a grocerycoin and biscuitcoins too? Bitcoin is fine for everything.