Bitcoin Failure is likely

[occulta]

scrap every other coin traded on btc-e and you are golden.

I see no benefit to any other coins, they are all just other devs trying to get in on the action.

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[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't see the "there could be infinite crypto-currencies" so that results in infinite coin supply and hurts Bitcoin.

There are a lot more materials which could be used as physical bullion than just gold & silver but gold & silver have "cornered" 99% of the market.

Barring a massive breech or flaw in the core protocol I doubt any alt will gain advantage over Bitcoin.

Lets look at the alts:
namecoin - has no intentional of being a currency.  infinite generation and coin destruction for registration of domains makes it unlikely it would be prefered OVER Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

Various CPU coins - serve no purpose, liquidity, depth, and merchant adoption are non-existent.  When the sole purpose for your exisence is "I don't have no GPU lets mine CPU coins" you have no future.

SolidCoin - proprietary, restricted license.  Single person has complete control of system.  No real business will every accept that as payment. 

Taking another digital concept.  "Ebay is worthless.  There can be infinite number of auction sites".  Except ebay is VALUABLE specificially because even w/ infinite number of auction sites it is more useful than the alternatives.  Actually the more the pie is split among the alternatives the more valuable ebay becomes.

IMHO Bitcoin is the ebay of decentralized currencies.  It may have issues but it is "good enough" to survive and grow.   As time goes on I believe interest in alt-coins will wane.  Imagine 10 years from now if liquidity, value, and # of services is significantly higher and some "major" companies accept Bitcoin.  It becomes even harder to launch an alternative which is starting with nothing.

[marcus_of_augustus]

There are a lot more materials which could be used as physical bullion than just gold & silver but gold & silver have "cornered" 99% of the market.

namecoin - has no intentional of being a currency.  infinite generation and coin destruction for registration of domains makes it unlikely it would be prefered OVER Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

These statements are both completely wrong.

Bitcoin has most of the properties of a superior cash money that the market seeks out naturally but it is still deficient in some aspects, particularly fungibility. The market will decide what is the best money to use, fit for purpose, it always has done in the past.

[rebuilder]

I see no benefit to any other coins, they are all just other devs trying to get in on the action.

Casascius already touched on this subject way earlier in the thread, but I'll reiterate what I think is the same idea:  It's not necessarily about benefit to the userbase, in the sense I think you mean.
Today, there was a lot of hoopla about Amazon supposedly adopting Bitcoin. Now, that's not likely to be true at all, but let's assume Amazon or some other big player really did think the idea was good. Would they just go and start accepting Bitcoin, as is? Maybe. It seems just as likely to me, however, that they would just create their own equivalent, maybe with some alterations. There's plenty of talk about what works and doesn't work currently already here, from the perspective of the current crowd of enthusiasts. A big retailer might well have ideas of their own about that. So, it's far from given that Bitcoin is what they'd go with, and any currency they might create would get huge exposure simply by virtue of being proposed by a big company. That doesn't necessarily mean Bitcoin would just die off, but it could set severe limits on the growth potential.

Personally, I think the big guys are still very interested in creating more centralized internet currencies, like Facebook credits etc, since that allows them more control. Personally, I think that's not going to fly, we've seen centralized internet currencies before and they haven't worked out very well, but that doesn't mean it won't be tried again. I think we're going to see more experimentation with centralized currencies before serious consideration is given to decentralized ones. If that does come to pass, then the question is what kind of features do big retailers want in a decentralized currency, and those may be very different from what Bitcoin offers. Anonymity isn't likely to be of interest to them, or for the mainstream userbase, either, for example.

IMO a big player taking interest in Bitcoin right now might not be such a good thing for Bitcoin. The whole system is still very small. The bigger the userbase gets, the better the chances of Bitcoin being the currency of choice for everyone are, but push it too early and you might just see a fork backed by one or more of the big players gain traction instead.

[herzmeister]

I'm also afraid that if Bitcoin fails, the whole concept of decentralized crypto-currency might fail, probably like forever.

Some say the cat is out of the bag, and you can't kill an idea, but I'm afraid it's not so easy.

The ecosystem and infrastructure around Bitcoin grew slowly, steadily and organically, making its value grow organically as well with people treating it as a scarce commodity. But if Bitcoin dies tomorrow, every man and their dog will announce a new currency/blockchain, so it's difficult to imagine that the community would agree on just one or a few again. With lots of parallel currencies, there'll be a hyper-inflation of what is at the end of the day merely hashed digital numbers. Without over-all limitation they will have no (or very low and extremely fluctuating) value, thus making the use as a money impossible.

About Amazon and Google, yes they will probably come up with their own credit systems one day, but they will most probably be based on central transaction databases. Doesn't make sense for Google to rip off a decentralized system like Bitcoin (although they did that with Diaspora  ).

[Steve]

I'm also afraid that if Bitcoin fails, the whole concept of decentralized crypto-currency might fail, probably like forever.

Nah…decentralized crypto-currency, if not bitcoin, is the future.  There is not doubting that in my opinion.  Also, regarding the original poster that claims there is "no authority" that recognizes bitcoin, that's completely wrong.  The people using bitcoin are the authority.  In a sense, the people participating in bitcoin are a government…and one which many people will perceive to be more legitimate than legacy governmental authorities.

[cbeast]

The Bitcoin network is around 10 Terahashs/s strong. Bitcoin is basically an internet of finance. It cannot die anymore than the WWW can die. I used the internet for years before browsers just fine. Nobody thought it was going to die. We just need a Mosaic type app to make Bitcoin blow up.

[matonis]

The Bitcoin network is around 10 Terahashs/s strong. Bitcoin is basically an internet of finance. It cannot die anymore than the WWW can die. I used the internet for years before browsers just fine. Nobody thought it was going to die. We just need a Mosaic type app to make Bitcoin blow up.

+1

[Costia]

i dont think its a good metric for success
If tomorrow  BTC drops to 1-3$/BTC the hash rate will drop quite fast
miners mine because the coin is valuable for trading, not the other way around
I don't think bitcoin will die but it might stagnate.

[cbeast]

i dont think its a good metric for success
If tomorrow  BTC drops to 1-3$/BTC the hash rate will drop quite fast
miners mine because the coin is valuable for trading, not the other way around
I don't think bitcoin will die but it might stagnate.

It dropped that far not long ago and hashrate did not drop a whole lot. If a country fails, their currency drops to zero. Bitcoin has no country to fail.

[Costia]

if silk road gets busted - BTC will drop significantly

and it dropped by ~50% and kept going down until the price started going up again
if it stayed at 2$ maybe it would have continued to decline...
these graphs look quite similar to me:
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin-ever.png
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=0&cv=0&ps=0&l=0&p=0&

[cbeast]

I think Bitcoin will follow growth similar to the internet itself:

[Costia]

it will grow similar to the internet only if the internet will provide services and products for BTC
this is kinda the main question - will BTC be adopted by sellers?
if yes - btc will grow. if no - it will stagnate(will be kept alive for illegal use only) or die.

[cbeast]

There are uses in development that only Bitcoin can achieve, not fiat currency. Just watch and read the forum threads. Very exciting stuff.

[Costia]

can you link some examples?
Some of the uses that require Bitcoin don't require it to have any value.
Like email verification - it only requires the computational difficulty - it wont matter if the coin itself is worthless (it doesnt even require the blockkchain).

[cbeast]

can you link some examples?
Some of the uses that require Bitcoin don't require it to have any value.
Like email verification - it only requires the computational difficulty - it wont matter if the coin itself is worthless (it doesnt even require the blockkchain).

Bitcoin is a currency, of course it will have value, but yes there are uses that exploit the signature, time stamp, and open ledger aspects.
I personally like the idea of a bitcoin based email. A nano-payment for email is acceptable for legitimate use, but spammers would end up paying more than they want. There are smart contract ideas, international payments, publishing micro-payments, notarization, and many more I'm sure. Also Bitcoin allows vaultless security, extreme liquidity, no counterfeiting, security from inflation for savings, and much more.

[Costia]

even though there is no inflation - i wouldnt put my savings in bitcoin
I didn't mean that it has\will no value , but that it just doesn't require it, that some of the core features are enough to make some of the uses work.
I really think bitcoin can be a great currency for gaming - in-game micro-transactions, buying games, paying for subscriptions. these things are not a physical product, they are international, and can be easily traded online . like: i will sell you 10 hats on TF2 for 10BTC and then buy 1 month EVE subscription from somebody else who got it in-game for ISK. Others can buy 10BTC for $ and then spend it on EVE ISK or facebook credits or whatever. this way they wont have dozens of 10 cent charges on their paypal/credit card and will be able to trade between different game's currency quite easily online.

[cbeast]

The micro-payment market alone can make Bitcoin blow up. All those online games with farm animals, magic swords, and laser beams will benefit from Bitcoin's low fees and universality. Larger payment items will follow.

Speculation is causing Bitcoin price to fluctuate just like fuel prices. I tend to fill up more often when it's low. The same can be done with Bitcoin and savings.

[farfiman]

i dont think its a good metric for success
If tomorrow  BTC drops to 1-3$/BTC the hash rate will drop quite fast
miners mine because the coin is valuable for trading, not the other way around
I don't think bitcoin will die but it might stagnate.

If miners leave , difficulty goes down...miners make more btc.....

[Costia]

i dont think its a good metric for success
If tomorrow  BTC drops to 1-3$/BTC the hash rate will drop quite fast
miners mine because the coin is valuable for trading, not the other way around
I don't think bitcoin will die but it might stagnate.

If miners leave , difficulty goes down...miners make more btc.....

nope
the amount of mined BTC is constant
so if BTC=6$ miners get 50K*6$ = 300K$/week
if BTC drops to 3$ - they get 150K$/week
the result will be less miners: (making up numbers now)
btc=6$ -> 1K miners get 300$/week
btc=3$ -> 500 miners get 300$/week (assuming getting 150$/week is unprofitable for a miner)
so the amount of hash power and miners is proportional to the price (or in more simple terms: hashpower costs $ not BTC)
the reason it won't really be proportional is speculation. but if the speculation is that its going down its probably going to have a snowball effect