Warning - while you were typing 7 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.Umm, no.
----
The increasing difficulty rate of Bitcoin along with the need to continually acquire more and faster ASICS to generate any meaningful return are making Bitcoin less and less relevant. What was once an open-to-many medium 12-24 months ago, maybe even 6 months ago is becoming closed and rather pointless.
Many people are hoarding Bitcoins as they believe they are a store of value and assuming that the deflationary parameters of Bitcoin continue to be maintained, then BTC functions less and less like a currency and more and more like a commodity. Sure, the price of BTC has fallen somewhat recently but that's not translating into lower prices of goods and services in BTC and therefore increased demand of those goods and services like any classical model of price-driven supply and demand presupposes. Rather, as the price of goods and services is still calibrated in fiat and not in Bitcoin, people are [rightly] resolved to not spend BTC as a currency but rather use fiat to purchase goods and services while they hoard BTC hoping for price-verses-fiat speculative gains in the future.
There's also a sense of nihilism in that if the 'flag-bearer currency' BTC is more akin to a commodity, why would any other deflationary cryptocurrencies be regarded any differently? In some senses, this may account for the rapid growth of the inflationary DOGE which people are seemingly more prepared to freely spend as it mimics a fiat currency more closely in that it's 'easy-come-easy-go' as people know that the pound-dollar-yen-doge-in-your-pocket isn't going to be appreciating based on the [imposed?] deflationary structural parameters like Bitcoin.
It's an open question as to whether Bitcoin 'the currency' is being spent less and less by people but hoarded more and more as a 'commodity' is a self-defeating proposition.
From a personal perspective, I now never use Bitcoin as a currency and I distrust it as a commodity and I have, for the last six months, been converting it to fiat as fast as I've mined it. I still mine and no doubt I will continue to mine, but I'm not interested in holding it as a commodity as I don't prescribe to the predominantly Amercian libertarian perspective that I need a
'currency' umm... 'virtual speculative commodity' in my financial portfolio to safeguard me from governments. Quite the opposite, I've lost more BTC to scams, exchanges closing, insufficient regulation and inefficient policing than I ever have with any other currency, asset or commodity. To me I regard BTC as an intangible like silver or gold, nice to have but it's not income producing, it may or may not rise over time and I may or may not be able to sell it for a windfall gain (although you can bet your bottom
dollar that I'll be able to sell gold and silver at any
dollar price) so I've already come to the rather empty conclusion that if you're a law-abiding, financially-aware, happy citizen who doesn't think the sky is falling or that the government is your enemy then Bitcoin is virtually worthless [to me].
I don't doubt that others value it and I'm glad that you do as I'm still happy to sell my
converted electricity on a barely-regulated exchange somewhere for Euros. That's my exchange fiat currency of choice right now as in general terms I'd venture that Europe hasn't really turned the economic corner and the Euro still has some upside, however the US does appear to have risen from an economic low, at least in terms of asset prices but that the 'currency wars' will still continue to keep America's exports competitive and it's currency comparatively low.
My perception and approach may, nay will, respond to changing circumstances, as is natural with any speculatively aware person so to get back to the title of this thread, "Bitcoin vs second generation coin", I suppose my broad sentiment is that I don't really care at all, I'll hopefully be reacting to circumstances as the sands of time fall through the hourglass, that is, living in the here and now, adjusting my metaphorical financial sail as the economic wind blows.
-------
Or, as is almost obligatory with the virtual environment, here a link that supposedly encapsulates my post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Pbc8SQwV8-------
Don't make the mistake of presupposing that I care what you think. That's my inner-libertarian speaking 
