There is a Race For an Internet-Native Currency, and Bitcoin is Leading It.

[TRONTON]

https://medium.com/@danroseman/there-is-a-race-for-an-internet-native-currency-and-bitcoin-is-leading-it-4d37ce5dcf3a

the three competitors mentioned can be faster in adoption and only require very active fundamentals, but do not apply to price competition because they only aim at the element of value stability. Coins from the PBOC project will also be hampered by developments outside their country because they have to face different jurisdictions.

Libra has not yet reached the final point on the currency they will use as a benchmark price, and they will be hampered in transaction rights between user countries with a context similar to PBOC above.

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[TravelMug]

Lol, let's put bitcoin's competition here so that everyone would know without clicking that link:

• Fiat-Backed Stablecoins (Tether & USDC) - Nope I don't think that we can even call them competition though. They are stable coins, and they have their reasons what they are here in the first place.
• Libra - this get's interesting, but we have to wait and see how they are going to do in crypto space. I mean with so many backlash about this project, can they really took off and be in competition
• PBoC Project - are crypto enthusiast willing to use this coin around the globe?, hmm your guess is as good as mine

With that said, I don't see any competition here, and if ever there was, bitcoin is already ahead of the pack here and it will take years and years for those crypto to be even get half what bitcoin did in its first 10 years alone.

[Carlton Banks]

• Fiat-Backed Stablecoins (Tether & USDC) - Nope I don't think that we can even call them competition though. They are stable coins, and they have their reasons what they are here in the first place.
• Libra - this get's interesting, but we have to wait and see how they are going to do in crypto space. I mean with so many backlash about this project, can they really took off and be in competition
• PBoC Project - are crypto enthusiast willing to use this coin around the globe?, hmm your guess is as good as mine

none of those projects are really trying to have good money qualities that favor everyone, they're all designed to help out the organisation behind it (and that may well be why Libra can't get at seat at the negotiating table, all Libra's partner firms were banks and payment apps companies, and they knew they would end up giving their business away if they made a deal Libra)

unfortunately though, most people don't care enough about whether their money will look after them. Understanding it is not easy, so it's hard to tell if people are for real when they tell you one thing's good, while the banks and financial companies spin another clever story about why we should all stick with them. I get the feeling that Bitcoin is pissing them off though, who else but people in the financial industry have got the incentive to troll people here on bitcointalk.org, or to try and popularize bitcoin hard forks with short-sighted changes to bitcoin's design? It's mostly the financial industry that have anything to lose if Bitcoin succeeds.

[Wind_FURY]

Can POW actually become "outdated"? The costs, the incentives, the game-theory that come with mining is what's keeping everything together.

It may be arrogant to say "no"

But it's very difficult to think how you could improve the idea, it's tapping the laws of physics after all. If there is an improvement in the PoW concept, it's hard to see how using energy in a exponentially iterative compounding way would not be the basis, but maybe there is a mathematical idea that can provide the same properties. Ten years later, still no-one has come up with any challenger, despite some interesting efforts.

let's not forget though, most people dismissed private and decentralised money concepts, both before Bitcoin and/ after Bitcoin (including me, it took a few months thinking it over before I realized Bitcoin was for real). And some are still dismissing it now!

Bitcoin proved, and still does, that alot of people just aren't imaginative enough to create or even understand new ideas

I'm talking about it also from an economic standpoint. It's the costs that's keeping the miners cooperative, and protective of their own interests and the whole network's interests. Remove the costs, then the incentives will change.

I believe that what some people say is "wasteful", might be the most important discovery of the Bitcoin-breakthrough.

[Wintersoldier]

I'm not sure internet native is the best word usage here. I would say it's a race to find the best, most anonymous most transparent and easiest to use currency for online payments.

I reckon the world would slowly turn into one with 2 payment methods, which make up the majority of transactions across the world. One for online purchases, like items from Amazon or buying in game currency for a game and the other one to be used in real life situations.

Anyway. If there was truly a race as described, Bitcoin would be winning it

At my first thoughts about reading this topic, the term native for me means, a cryptocurrency suitable for people without an internet connection. But upon look at the actual website, the race focuses on the cryptocurrency itself. If the OP just provides a bit of an introductory sentence, it would be better for us to easily understand.

Going back to the topic, the race for the cryptocurrency might still depend on what aspect of a transaction will be the goal. If they will consider the transaction speed, bitcoin will not be the best. As well as considering the transaction fee, there is surely some cryptocurrency that is much more suitable for this such as XRP and ETH. If bitcoin will utilize the lightning network then bitcoin will take lead for majority of the cryptocurrency.

[alyssa85]

I'm not sure internet native is the best word usage here. I would say it's a race to find the best, most anonymous most transparent and easiest to use currency for online payments.

I reckon the world would slowly turn into one with 2 payment methods, which make up the majority of transactions across the world. One for online purchases, like items from Amazon or buying in game currency for a game and the other one to be used in real life situations.

Anyway. If there was truly a race as described, Bitcoin would be winning it

That's kind of already the case, isn't it? People either use creditcards (Visa/Mastercard), or they use Paypal. Paypal has maybe 5% of the entire online purchasing market.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are barely a fraction of 1% of online payments. We've actually gone backwards in terms of adoption as a payment in the last few years.

[Carlton Banks]

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are barely a fraction of 1% of online payments. We've actually gone backwards in terms of adoption as a payment in the last few years.

percentage wise, it may be down. But Bitcoin carries more transactions than it did in the last few years, in terms of daily average, peak and available capacity. That's not backwards adoption, even if it's a smaller slice of online payments (which hence must be growing overall faster than Bitcoin is).

and when lightning payments channels overtake on-chain usage, no-one will even know, since the statistics will always be incomplete because of how private the network is.

[shield132]

I'm not sure internet native is the best word usage here. I would say it's a race to find the best, most anonymous most transparent and easiest to use currency for online payments.

I reckon the world would slowly turn into one with 2 payment methods, which make up the majority of transactions across the world. One for online purchases, like items from Amazon or buying in game currency for a game and the other one to be used in real life situations.

Anyway. If there was truly a race as described, Bitcoin would be winning it

At some point I think internet-native is great term there cause bitcoin was the first currency which takes roots from informational technologies and internet. For online payments, every currency is "easiest" and there are more anonymous ones too, for example Monero.
But I have no idea about "internet's own currency". Wait, if you convert bitcoins in fiat via internet too, then what this means? Bitcoin isn't independent, it's price is calculated in USD, it's not separate from it. So I wouldn't say fiat doesn't do this or that thing. As for now bitcoin is like fiat converter.

[WatchMaker]

Bitcoin is valuable today because of the technology and strong hashing algorithm behind it without them there would be no bitcoin today. The bitcoin network is getting bigger, stronger, and better because of the huge number of bitcoin miners on the network. Many people trust bitcoin because of that and the major reason why the bitcoin is winning the race.

[Kakmakr]

I do not think it is actually a fair race, because we know Bitcoin cannot compete with all these other government backed coins. We also know that most governments do not recognize Bitcoin as a "currency", so these online retailers are actually hesitant to accept it as a payment option.

This is why most online retailers are making use of payment processors to convert the bitcoins to fiat. So, when they get confronted with the legal issues, they can say that they are dealing in fiat currencies and that they are not touching any Bitcoin. 

Until the playing field are made fair, Bitcoin merchants will have to use alternative methods to use Bitcoin as a payment option. 

[Wysi]

I do not think it is actually a fair race, because we know Bitcoin cannot compete with all these other government backed coins. We also know that most governments do not recognize Bitcoin as a "currency", so these online retailers are actually hesitant to accept it as a payment option.

This is why most online retailers are making use of payment processors to convert the bitcoins to fiat. So, when they get confronted with the legal issues, they can say that they are dealing in fiat currencies and that they are not touching any Bitcoin. 

Until the playing field are made fair, Bitcoin merchants will have to use alternative methods to use Bitcoin as a payment option. 

Yes even the merchant will be in trouble if they accept bitcoin without converting it into fiat and bitcoin is cornered by regulators and we do see there are many leading e commerce site and retailers using their own digital currency and they may claim to be the leader of digital without competing with bitcoin.  Can't blame merchants as well because they don't want any legal trouble for themselves.

[leea-1334]

Even PoW consume too much energy, It is still worth it
as it makes BTC more valuable. Same as gold mining which consume oil and power just to mine it.

make up your mind! Proof-of-work does consume energy (duhhhh), and contributes to why Bitcoin is valuable. But if you can see that, how can it be "consuming too much"?

Without PoW, a blockchain would be pretty pointless. Miners could remine the whole chain from the first ever block in minutes/hours, there'd be millions of blockchains trying to pretend each were the real chain. None of the data on the chain would ever be safe, and so no-one would use the system.

There is a point I also keep finding myself wondering why people complain about "too much energy". Like when people say avoid plane travel because it is too much energy but something that saves time and lets people connect is not a high cost if you think about it. Maybe people should switch off computers because it is too much energy.

And with BTC mining people keep forgetting the benefit, they only remember the cost.

[error08]

Although bitcoin owns 70% of all the digital-asset world’s market value, bitcoin isn't the one leading because Tether has about 18% higher than bitcoin based on the trading volume. Check on coinmarketcap daily trading volume, Tether has $30,990,173,614 and bitcoin has $26,116,728,550 it's interesting as Tether value pegged on the dollar.
Tether was used in 40% and 80% of all transactions on two of the world’s top exchanges, Binance and Huobi
Nevertheless, people in the crypto sphere know bitcoin still the king of cryptocurrency without any doubt, all of the altcoins in the market can't compare to the success of bitcoin.

Source

[Bitcoin_bullish]

The economy that is currently based in Keynesian Economics don't actually demand for a currency to be a store of value. Since Nixon abolished the gold backing on the USD, all currencies are struggling and bount to lose 99% of their value. On every downturn they are ready to print a hundred trillion dollars and pump the stock market.

Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21million with a small inflation that is rewarding miners to keep the network running.

Bitcoin is a real currency as it has an attribute the rest government issued currencies don't. Bitcoin is a store of value.

Bitcoin is holding it's value and adding more to it every day for the past 11 years.

Bitcoin is better than gold as it is easy to use in transactions.

Bitcoin is the future of transactions, especially with lightning network we will see the merchant mass adoption.

[Reid]

I don't understand why Libra should already be listed there.
The chances of it going thru all that paper works and regulations is really low.
Too many government officials are against them and even the President of their homeland.

Should've listed just currencies which are already on work. But I do believe bitcoin is already on top of every crypto.
When I just here people talking about blockchain or crypto, it had always been instantly bitcoin which pops in my mind.

[target]

Stablecoin I guess is going to be out of this race since its just going to be used anyway for everything like sending an amount you don't want the value to change in matter of minutes. IF the race is just about which one is going to be used widely, stablecoins I think had lost the race already if you look at the dominance.

You should be thinking of blockchain as a platform itself and BTC is just one of the application and all other altcoins are other apps with some other purpose for each community they meant and were built for.  Tether and all other stablecoin isn't part of it as it can be considered fiat.

[RealMalatesta]

among the internet currency participants only 4 and two of them have not proven that it exists ,bitcoin is the winner among altcoins that are still confusing? it hurts to read a little about the article bitcoin competes with tether in my opinion that's ridiculous
bitcoin has been leading since I opened my eyes from sleep in 2012 to the present and maybe forever

The leadership of bitcoin is not even under probability as I believe that its position cannot be contended with. The people creating the competition, are they not human beings, and it is according to what they understand that made them pair bitcoin with tether which I think that I don’t have to listen to them for me to know the level of project that bitcoin should compete with and even if bitcoin is to compete with those highly top rated coins, they still cannot stand in the position of bitcoin.

Tether is a coin that I don't even see surviving in future, if they really want to know the stand of tether, they should allow Facebook to release its stable coin, people will see how much tether will disappear from the market and still with Facebook influence, it cannot beat bitcoin.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Anyway. If there was truly a race as described, Bitcoin would be winning it

I would agree with you if network fees didn't ever spike and you didn't have to wait minutes to hours for a confirmation.  Those are the major disadvantages of bitcoin in my opinion, and there are a lot of altcoins which don't have them. 

There really doesn't need to be an internet currency.  There just doesn't.  And I say that while being an ardent bitcoin supporter.  Nobody is clamoring for an alternative to fiat except those who are so blinded by bitcoin propaganda that they can't see that people *don't* have issues with buying stuff online with fiat.  That's the truth.