What's to stop a 'Bitcoin 2' taking over...

[DooMAD]

Many of the same nutjobs promoting BTC also Promote LN, not realizing it may use altcoins to dethrone BTC

How is LN using altcoins to dethrone BTC? Sure. Altcoins can definitely use LN's tech. But does it matter? Does it make it an inferior solution just because it's not bitcoin-only? That doesn't make any sense at all.

To get you up to speed on recent events, the two most vocal critics of Lightning on this forum are franky1 and Khaos77 (who likes to pretend they aren't Zin-Zang, who said they were never going to post again within 2 days of the Khaos77 account being registered and appears to share all of the same obnoxious mannerisms, so make of that what you will).  

They have this theory that because LN will facilitate Atomic Swaps, where you can effectively move funds between the different blockchains Lightning can be used with (namely Litecoin and Vertcoin at the moment), that this means people will use Lightning to leave Bitcoin in favour of other coins with lower fees.  They like calling it the "thunderdome" from the Mad Max films.  "Two men enter, one man leaves".  Dramatic stuff, right?

The reason this is a poor argument to make is that people can already use exchanges to leave Bitcoin and buy other coins with those attributes.  The reason those other coins tend to have lower fees is because there isn't as much competition on those networks to include transactions in a block.  If more people started using those other chains and blocks started to fill up, users might start offering larger fees to increase the chance of their transaction being included promptly.

Moreover, while they do everything they can to convince people that Lightning is the worst thing that could possibly happen, they also seem to argue that LN usage would have to increase for their scary campfire tales to come true.  Lightning usage is still comparatively low on the other blockchains which currently support it.  If Atomic Swaps were commonplace right now, Litecoin and Vertcoin currently lack the capacity for any large number of users to leave Bitcoin via the Lightning network.  Bitcoin currently has a BTC network capacity on Lightning of over 1000 BTC.  Litecoin, by comparison, only has just under 200 LTC network capacity on Lightning.  At current market rates, 200 LTC is worth about 3 BTC.  That means out of the ~1000 BTC capacity, only ~3 BTC could be currently used in atomic swaps.

Another point to consider is that when you use Atomic Swaps to move funds from one blockchain to another, it's a swap.  There has to be someone on the other blockchain wanting to move their funds to the blockchain you are on.  If you atomic swapped your BTC for LTC, they have to swap their LTC for your BTC in return.  So unlike the thunderdome, it's actually "two users enter, then both users leave again", but you can see why they wouldn't describe it accurately, since it doesn't sound quite as foreboding or scary that way.

TLDR version:  Once you understand how it all works, their "concerns" (all sarcasm intended) are nothing more than fearmongering.  There's a strong likelihood they are trolling the forums and you should judge the quality of their arguments very carefully.

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[mk4]

It seems to me that there are currencies based on much better and newer technologies. Although many people continue to use Bitcoin. This is due to the fact that Bitcoin is an idea. It is like a symbol of the cryptosphere.

Genuine question: can you name these coins that you think has "better and newer" tech? Just really curious what some people think here. Also, it's a lot more than that why people continue to use bitcoin.

[mk4]

When LN reaches the point , that you buy LN notes directly for fiat,

LN notes? What? Are you referring to the Lightning Network being a separate currency?

that LN hub can use cheaper altcoins, such as litecoin to fund your LN channels.
By doing so they increase the utility of litecoin and decrease the utility of bitcoin ,
while also making a profit on litecoin's lower transactions fees.

Along with bitcoin, some altcoins like litecoin can definitely use LN, but does it automatically mean that litecoin will necessarily decrease the utility of bitcoin? How so? Not because people can use litecoin through LN, it doesn't automatically mean they would. Me personally, I'm pretty positive that I wouldn't.

[jseverson]

It seems to me that there are currencies based on much better and newer technologies. Although many people continue to use Bitcoin. This is due to the fact that Bitcoin is an idea. It is like a symbol of the cryptosphere.

I'm not convinced about the "much better and newer technologies" part. There are some coins that are marginally better in some areas, but at the end of the day, Bitcoin's ecosystem, versatility, and resiliency far outweigh them.

I can assure you that people won't ignore a far superior product just because the alternative has turned into an icon. Look at Kodak, Nokia, etc.

[Pursuer]

you should ask who not what!

because it is the people who are stopping this supposed "bitcoin 2.0" to take over bitcoin. people as in both developers and the investors. developers because they chose the rout that ends in the most amount of profit by creating shitcoins, copying bitcoin, scamming people through ICO/STO/... and all kinds of nonsense,... and the investors because they stopped thinking before giving their money to shitcoins. that effectively killed any kind of improvement of altcoins and they remained useless for the most part.

[franky1]

doomad is happy about core devs owning the bitcoin network. he loves that CORE opposition get rekt off the network.
he lacks the understanding of consensus and byzantine generals theory

he is happy that without consensus of a feature activation to cause SOME nodes to have issues with upgrades that a pre apartheid kill off should occur to ensure core dominance and is happy now core are "permissionless" and dont need community consent that the core roadmap is now law.

doomad loves the idea to de-burden the bitcoin network of user utility and persuade users that LN is the future of transacting, he over embellishes LN, over promotes LN, over commits on what LN is and does. and yet seems to have no experience of using LN even after months of requests to get doomad to even use and research such.
he is like a 'phoneplan/cable' sales guy who has yet to try the service himself so is just getting by from using scripts and prompts from a supervisor

doomads flaw in his rebuttle of the thunderdome analogy by comparing to exchanges is that exchanges are just a tool/option.
your not forced to lock funds up for set periods. your not forced to just use one service.

yet the way dev's are playing with the bitcoin network by stifling BITCOIN NETWORK SCALING and instead just adding new tx formats as a gate way to LN, and thn to promote LN as the single scaling solution network is again about de-burdening bitcoin of utility. and persuading users in one direction

thats the major difference between exchanges utility and LN utility. the dev's and LN promoters literally trying to push people into using LN by making bitcoin expensive, unable to handle normal spending habits.

my actual analogy is that of the same gameplay of 18th century banking. taking in gold, vaulting it up and letting users play with promissory notes that are unaudited(unconfirmed) where by fortknox(factories) can be used to cycle bank account fund ownerships around without users having to touch real gold per settlement

thus keeping people away from touching real gold(bitcoin) again. and then offering the option of silver and copper(altcoins) as the settlement option

if doomad cared for the BITCOIN network more then his commercial group. you would not see him defend LN or core, you would see him actually try to promote more BITCOIN NETWORK utility and not these other networks or commercialised dev teams, or pegged coins(promissory notes) as ways to deburden the bitcoin network of utility

[Kimi80]

I don't find hard to imagine that some new coin could or will take bitcoins place as a number one crypto coin. Some with bigger support of the investors and  community. Take for example MySpace and Facebook. It's not the same thing but same analogy can be implied.

[karloscimot]

There are already coins with better technology than Bitcoin but still people prefer Bitcoin, why? Probably, because when any company looking to integrate crypto, they will add BTC first.

bitcoin may not be replaced by any coin, first because of the trust of market participants who are already entrenched. and bitcoin is the parent coin and its value is always the benchmark for the price of all coins, so why should we look for others if this is already very good ??

[shesheboy]

More cryptocurrencies that existed by the time of bitcoin is no more in the market.

What ?  I dont understand this . you mean bitcoin will soon end but there are still alot of other cryptos that will exist ? No meyt , bitcoin will not end but let say bitcoin will end,  other cryptos will also end because all coins are all connected to bitcoin.

With this I believe bitcoin will be the successful asset in the cryptocurrency market.

Currently its obvious that bitcoin is the only leading crypto coin based on its price and ranking but we dont know yet on the future if this good performance could continue  .

[mk4]

If BTC died , LN would continue.

While I agree with some of your statements, goodluck waiting for Bitcoin(BTC) to die though. If Bitcoin were to die someday, very likely for the unnecessary altcoins to die first.

For many people btc has no other value to them.

I'm pretty sure btc has value to people as long as it's worth something in fiat.

[dothebeats]

But number 3 - is not such a good argument in my opinion.
As - I could create a value storage coin with only 10 million maximum circulation, thus trumping bitcoin as a coin of value with inherent rarity.
To top that It could have modern improvements that some of the other altcoins have these days - instant transactions and better scaling (no idea what that is btw) e.t.c.
--

Extremely limited supply cap (such as the 42 coin and One coin) ultimately defeats bitcoin in terms of rarity, but that does not make them better coins in any way. Also, fancy features found on a coin and 100% anonymity does not guarantee a coin to get the lion's share of the market. At the end of the day (at least at these current days), speculative purposes and market activity is what entices people to buy whichever coin they want. Bitcoin gets the huge market share over any other altcoins out there but its features are somewhat behind over the current altcoins that devs are introducing, so again, cool features and rarity does not guarantee an altcoin a spot at the top when it comes to market share.

[franky1]

Extremely limited supply cap (such as the 42 coin and One coin) ultimately defeats bitcoin in terms of rarity, but that does not make them better coins in any way. Also, fancy features found on a coin and 100% anonymity does not guarantee a coin to get the lion's share of the market. At the end of the day (at least at these current days), speculative purposes and market activity is what entices people to buy whichever coin they want. Bitcoin gets the huge market share over any other altcoins out there but its features are somewhat behind over the current altcoins that devs are introducing, so again, cool features and rarity does not guarantee an altcoin a spot at the top when it comes to market share.

i prefer my analogy better.
my dog does 1 poop a day and will live 12 years average. thats a rarity of 4380 poops ever to be avaiable.
that makes my dogs poop worth 4795x more then bitcoin. lets start the bids. who wants a bag of poop for $19m. any takers

rarity and perceived value based purely on rarity does not give something real value.
function/utility/purpose gives it value. and its the desire of multiple people wanting it that gives it value.

if people start seeing it as too expensive to handle, slow/heavy boring. and they find something else fastr/cheaper mor useful. then value dies of the first thing.
(myspace vs facebook, aol vs skype)

the main thing that can actually kill bitcoin and promote another coin is if merchants/exchanges start shifting away from bitcoin and promote altcoins. EG merchant shopping cart tools drop btc and only accept LTC

take 2017
imagine if all the NYA agreement srvices (bitpay, coinbase, multiple exchanges) decided to not support cores segwit thus not support bitcoin. and instead would only support litcoin
soon enough people holding bitcoin wont find services/merchants or ways to spend their btc. so btc would lose value. mining pools will realise they dont have exchanges to swap their btc for fiat. so drop their hashrate and pool hop to an altcoin that is exchange acceptable

in essense its not about 'faith' that bitcoin has value du to rarity or being first or having value just for sake of value. its actually UTILITY/SPENDABILITY

[Red-Apple]

If BTC died , LN would continue.

While I agree with some of your statements, goodluck waiting for Bitcoin(BTC) to die though. If Bitcoin were to die someday, very likely for the unnecessary altcoins to die first.

people always miss the fact that 90% of the altcoins are copies of bitcoin, some are nearly exact copies and some others are  copies with small meaningless changes. which is the main reason why they don't have any meaningful value and also why if bitcoin died all of them will die right afterwards.