What's the point of so many cryptocurrencies?

[btcb3g1nn3r]

Hi,
I was browsing about 50 pages here https://www.blockchain.com/prices?page=50 then I gave up and googled it...there are more than 2000 cryptocurrencies!
Why?
The fiat tends to reduce thanks to EUR, what's the purpose of so many cryptos?

thanks

[Upgrade00]

there are more than 2000 cryptocurrencies!

Way more. Coingecko currently has 6088 tracked currencies and these are just the ones that are currently active as coins/tokens gets delisted regularly when they go bust or turn to a scam.

what's the purpose of so many cryptos?

A huge chunk of them have no practical use case and were only invented by the devs for profits; They create tokens easily on a platform, market it as a link between the block chain and xyz industry, run a presale or any other type of coin offering and hope people would exchange currencies like BTC, ETH or fiat for the token, they can also dump the tokens back on investors if it ever gets listed on an exchange.

This is the downside of having an unregulated market, anyone can create a token easily.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Main purpose: A distractions from bitcoin, alts were created to steal your bitcoin (keep this in mind always lol). This coins/tokens are been created from thin air just like the fiat so you lose focus on what the ideology begin bitcoin is. The industry has been monetized, some might argue that the reason behind so many tokens is because they're different problem each were created to solve but don't be decieve as most of the problem this new project claim to solved can be solved using Bitcoin.

Before the so called defi tokens we already have bitcoin that's truly decentralized and not all the centralized project claiming to be defi. The reason we have so many tokens is basically as a result of greed (project developers looking for fame, monetary value and ego of been one of the pioneer of the cryptocurrency industry.

Quick research through the so called aits you'll notice most operate similarly so why then do we need them all instead of focusing that energy on one and makes it a success. 99% of the other cryptocurrency are worthless and only valuable through trading.

[actmyname]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯The real question is: why do people continue to invest in the penny stocks of the crypto market?

Thing about the centralization is that it's able to snuff out competitors whether they are better or worse. Look at fiat, and look at Bitcoin.

[hatshepsut93]

Anyone can launch a cryptocurrency, it costs absolutely nothing to do, unlike with companies you don't need any registration or own any infrastructure/capital/etc. Combine it with the fact that there's always greater fool who will buy a coin, no matter how stupid it is, and its easy to see how we ended up with thousands of coins.

I like your comparison with Euro - people want to own 1 currency that is accepted everywhere, instead of owning 100 currencies for different use cases. The more popular money replaces the less popular money. Altcoins have no chance of achieving mass adoption.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

what's the purpose of so many cryptos?

Coinmarketcap.com: https://coinmarketcap.com/
There are 4141 projects
If you use the filter and set the marketcap is from $0 to $0, there are 1730 $0 marketcap projects. They can be dead projects or infant projects but most of them are dead projects.

Coingecko.com: https://www.coingecko.com/en?page=1
There are 61 pages with one full page is for 100 cryptocurrency so there are about more than 6000 cryptocurrency and derivatives.

Many projects are created by scammers and have 0 value for communities and many people lost their capital for scam projects. The list of dead projects could be longers as some of them were removed by coinmarketcap or coingecko.

[cryptoaddictchie]

why then do we need them all instead of focusing that energy on one and makes it a success. 99% of the other cryptocurrency are worthless and only valuable through trading.

Some traders like to gain from profits. I dont know but that one criteria of crypto that can't be compared to stocks. Since they have use cases and represent their company, however some of the crypto tokens made only for the purpose of making money. Well, that's one part we cant possibly denied and always be a down side of this industry. However, decentralized aspect should stay as it is. Just avoid those and patronized a true projects with real use cases and help.

[mk4]

1. Cashgrabs
2. Scams
3. Some are trying to join in on the hype
4. More scams
5. Some are trying to go for a different use-case(kinda reasonable, but most are still crap)
6. Some are trying to beat bitcoin(goodluck lmao)

[pooya87]

Back in early days people were trying to expand on the idea of bitcoin and create something new while exploring different ideas that couldn't be implemented on bitcoin. For example one of the first altcoins called litecoin experimented with a different mining algorithm and block times.
Nowadays on the other hand innovation is dead and is replaces by greed as it was mentioned before. Everyone is trying to make a lot of money in fastest way possible which is exactly why ethereum was created to let people create garbage as fast as possible with virtually no effort or cost and sell it to people to fill their pockets while pumping the shittoken of the platform called ether.

[Jawhead999]

There's no point/purpose of tons cryptocurrencies, the developer creating them to get profit if it's successful or plan to exit scam... nothing less and nothing more, it's because of money.

To be honest we can't be sure how many exact crypto has been created in the past until now, because there're a lots abandoned and failed coins that turn become deadcoins [1]

Maybe there're 10,000+ coins has been created but only 6000+ still survive (with shitcoins too)
[1] https://deadcoins.com/

[hugeblack]

Greed, love to get more easy money, and buy more Bitcoin are the reasons why there are more than 3000 cryptocurrencies, but if we look at them programmatically, we will find that there are 3 basic classifications or three groups:

 - Privacy coins: Monero, Dash, Zcash, Grin,...etc
 - Tokens network: ETH, TORN, NEO,...etc
 - Hardfork coins & well-devpled coins:  BCH, ADA,...etc

other cryptos and tokens will lose their value over time.

[Apostlekin$$$]

😅😅 honestly if all those money that are invested in useless altcoins are invests on top coins like BTC, ETH, LTC and others crypto space will be free of trash projects, the reason why scammers are still building useless projects is because there are people who are still investing money on such projects

[Apostlekin$$$]

BTC was once 4$ and today it's 29,000$, if a newbie who knew nothing about crypto sees this he or she will FOMO and since the price is too high they won't have anything else on their mind than hope for another coin to grow as big as bitcoin few years later, that's where the journey of seeking for cheap coins will begin

[traderethereum]

Hi,
I was browsing about 50 pages here https://www.blockchain.com/prices?page=50 then I gave up and googled it...there are more than 2000 cryptocurrencies!
Why?
The fiat tends to reduce thanks to EUR, what's the purpose of so many cryptos?

thanks

The purpose is to make more money from cryptocurrencies.
If a person has programming skills and can make a new project in the crypto, he will try to make his own coins. Maybe his reason is not about making money for the first time, but then if he sees a chance to make money, he will try to continue his project and get more investors.
But they have their own reason (every developer), and we can only guess what their real reason is to create their project.
But for me, if there are so many coins at the market, that can help me profit from each potential project.

[Oshosondy]

There are many cryptocurrencies with almost or over 8000 now, most of them are shitcoins, many of them are pump and dump coins, many of them just remain stagnant.

I have seen many purposes of having altcoins.

1. It create means of centralization. Ripple is an example which has been filed a lawsuit by SEC because the centralization makes it shady and centrally controlled.
2. Hidden agenda. Many of the altcoins have hidden agenda, because they are not decentralized.
3. Scam. If there is only bitcoin, scam would have reduced. This is clear and known in ICO and DeFi scam. Many exchanges are shady because of the stupid coins they are listing that they use to scam people.

Bitcoin just remain the true decentralized coin, while those many altcoins needs attention as most are shady.

[JHORN]

I believe that if there is not so many crypto projects today we won't know what crypto is lacking, there are some field that needs to be experiment on, maybe it's suited for crypto or not we can't say until we try it out, having more projects is not so good but at the same time it's eye opening

[20kevin20]

It's a decentralized sphere, so everyone can come up with their own coin. It just happens so that human greed always takes over the control and people often care more about the potential money they make than about coming up with something effective, new and useful.

Before? The point of creating another cryptocurrency was either as a testing ground for some different concepts/rules. Today? It's all about the money. There are very few projects that launch with no premine and no bad intentions. If you think about it, having this many currencies is as useful as having so many fiat currencies: you only exchange them when you need them, hence why BTC still sits at the top. It's pretty much the most needed one.

[famososMuertos]

I am sure that in the future it will be illegal, not only because of the intrinsic objective that some have in the nature of the mission they have in their creators, explained and indicated in this same thread.

The disorder comes because there is a lot of adoption on the part of everyone as users and that is one of the first reasons why there are so many and in growth.
The "uninformed" people and the "fish" do not stop leaving for each project that is develops associated with a misnamed crypto project.

Fortunately concerns like yours are also growing, there is increasing general knowledge about where true adoption should go and what alternatives exist apart from bitcoin as a feasible, honest, real option.

[jseverson]

I see a lot of people saying greed, and while I agree it's very prevalent, I actually like that there are a lot of them to choose from. I mean, the cash grabby ones are obvious enough (copy-pasted code with few inconsequential modifications) and should die in a ditch, but in the sea of those, we also got a few like Ethereum and Monero which can actually fulfill different use-cases from Bitcoin.

Either way, even functionally similar coins like Dogecoin have their own community, and that's good for us users -- the freedom to choose backing communities which resonate with us more is never a bad thing, and actually reinforces decentralization of the crypto scene as a whole.

All that being said, it's still best to be careful with them because they definitely won't be as safe as Bitcoin for your money.

[Smartvirus]

Is there really so many cryptocurrencies?
For me, all we've got are Bitcoin  (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), Litecoin (LITC), Ripple (XRP) as these remains the soring cryptocurrencies so far and if you ask me, it ain't bad to have these different currencies. Why do I say this,
This is because, if you intend to transact in a particular cryptocurrency, let's say ETH and the transaction fee happens to be too high, you can go for another altcoin like the XRP, transact and still get the value of your $ in coin. Just not the coin you would have hoped for by the way. But with the fact that you could always swap one coin against another, it becomes an added advantage.