Why you should only hold Bitcoin

[SickDayIn]

According to CoinGecko, there are over 2.5 million cryptocurrencies (read more here: https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-cryptocurrencies-are-there).

Whilst these are classified as cryptocurrencies, the reality is that the majority of these are actually just tokens, primarily on the Ethereum or Solana Blockchains.

Almost all (99.9%+ based on my opinion) of these are coins or tokens that have no purpose, and provide no value. They are centralised, have often unlimited supply or have been pre-mined with distributions allocated to the owners. The only intention of these projects is to make the creators richer, and take value away from everyone else.

The 1000th cryptocurrency by market capitalisation is GYEN with a market capitalisation of $13.38M according to CoinMarketCap (read more here: https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/). Therefore, these 2.499m remaining coins clearly have any negligible valuation in the market, and should just be considered trash.

Whilst it can be easy to see that a significant portions of these coins are either scams, pump and dumps, or have had their daily volume manipulated to appear like speculative investments, there are still a lot of other coins, even in the top 1000 that you should be cautious of.

Some of the highest market capitalisation alt coins, still do not provide the real world value that their white papers have intended. Whilst yes there may be a few examples of real world use cases using the technology, how many holders of the coin actually use it for its desired functional purpose, rather than just sitting on it and hoping the price increases so they can sell? These are speculators and traders, and not investors. You do not want to hold something which others are primarily speculating on.

Let's also take BNB as an example. A market capitalisation of $86.74 Billion and ranked as the #4 coin overall. It is developed and owned by a private company, Binance. Their objective primarily is profit for their company. Yes the owners have alterior and philosophical plans, but ultimately they need to keep their company profitable. They have offered some technologies, like Binance Smart Chain, and they have their own exchange, but we cannot forget that they MUST turn a profit on their projects as an organisation, and releasing a coin like BNB is to benefit THEIR interests primarily. They can and will change things as they please, you do not want to hold something where the rules can change at any moment.

The same applies to many other top coins even with $100m+ market caps. You must ask yourself when you are investing your money, is the intention of the project to actually make a meaningful difference or change to society, and is it following through in the current day on that objective?

Currently the only option to invest in and hold over the long term is Bitcoin. It is the only truely decentralised cryptocurrency, with a finite supply and being used for its original intention on a regular basis - a storage of wealth that is not impacted by inflation, and the ease of making borderless transactions.

What I am ultimately getting at here in the theme of my post is that there is no other coin besides Bitcoin, which you can trust can be held over the long term. What are your thoughts?

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[MusaMohamed]

According to CoinGecko, there are over 2.5 million cryptocurrencies (read more here: https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-cryptocurrencies-are-there).

You can read more information for

How many cryptocurrencies failed, dead?
How many Bitcoin forks are dead?

Then you will see more risk from altcoins (Bitcoin forks are altcoins too) and make your investment decisions more carefully and have more fear about altcoins, then avoid altcoins for your portfolio in long term.

Dead Coins: Over 50% of Cryptocurrencies Have Failed
How many Bitcoin forks are there?

[peter0425]

What I am ultimately getting at here in the theme of my post is that there is no other coin besides Bitcoin, which you can trust can be held over the long term. What are your thoughts?

It’s true that so far no coin was able to do whatever bitcoin has done in our world.

Bitcoin is the pinnacle of crypto and for a long time it will be. However I believe that it still depends on the person whether they want to invest in bitcoin only or want to invest in other coins as well. Yes bitcoin is the best but some people are looking for other features that bitcoin really does not have. Some would also argue that bitcoin is too expensive now.

I think as long as one is making the right choice then they can do anything or invest in anywhere they want.

[legendbtc]

According to CoinGecko, there are over 2.5 million cryptocurrencies (read more here: https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-cryptocurrencies-are-there).

You can read more information for

How many cryptocurrencies failed, dead?
How many Bitcoin forks are dead?

Then you will see more risk from altcoins (Bitcoin forks are altcoins too) and make your investment decisions more carefully and have more fear about altcoins, then avoid altcoins for your portfolio in long term.

Dead Coins: Over 50% of Cryptocurrencies Have Failed
How many Bitcoin forks are there?

Yes, there have been thousands of failed, scam and useless altcoins but I don't think we should avoid all altcoins. I have no objection to someone investing only in bitcoin because it is the safest currency on the market. But let me ask, if we only talk about profits, what about altcoins like ETH, Link, Near, Solana...? If I remember correctly, ETH was created in 2013 and it is still growing bigger every day until now, the initial investors in it are making huge profits. Similarly, solana was expected to die when FTX collapsed but look at what it has done over the past year from $13 and it is trading above $140.

[SickDayIn]

According to CoinGecko, there are over 2.5 million cryptocurrencies (read more here: https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-cryptocurrencies-are-there).

You can read more information for

How many cryptocurrencies failed, dead?
How many Bitcoin forks are dead?

Then you will see more risk from altcoins (Bitcoin forks are altcoins too) and make your investment decisions more carefully and have more fear about altcoins, then avoid altcoins for your portfolio in long term.

Dead Coins: Over 50% of Cryptocurrencies Have Failed
How many Bitcoin forks are there?

I agree that Bitcoin forks are altcoins and the same context from my thread applies, when I say you should only hold Bitcoin, I mean only Bitcoin and nothing else, not including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, BSV or anything else.

Whilst there are metrics out there for dead coins (no market cap or no liquidity for trading), a coin may still be alive and traded regularly, but still I don't think any alt coins should be in someone's portfolio. Alt coins are created to make the owners wealthy primarily, or become highly centralised and governed by organisations with selfish intent. The only one free of this is Bitcoin..

[Z-tight]

If you talk about utility, then it is unlikely to find altcoins that are useful, however, they are mainly tools for trading, and buying many of them simply means you are gambling with your funds. Everyone does what they want with their money, and a lot of bitcoiners also buy and store altcoins, but i guess it usually makes up the lesser percentage of their crypto portfolio.

What I am ultimately getting at here in the theme of my post is that there is no other coin besides Bitcoin, which you can trust can be held over the long term. What are your thoughts?

I agree with you, so many altcoins cannot survive for the long term, and if you do not sell it quickly, they will become useless in your wallet. BTC is different because it is useful and there is real-world demand for its use cases.

[Darker45]

Forget about purpose and intentions. Bitcoin, too, has become guilty of that to a certain extent. Hodling, as a matter of fact, may not be what Bitcoin is for.

As for altcoins, some of them may be good for investment. Of course, you also don't consider their purpose and intentions. Whatever is written on their whitepaper are only there for a show, to make it appear that their project is valid, that it has a reason to succeed. But they aren't for hodling. They're good for quick profit, hit and run strategy. You can't be loyal to an altcoin.

[martinex]

Whilst there are metrics out there for dead coins (no market cap or no liquidity for trading), a coin may still be alive and traded regularly, but still I don't think any alt coins should be in someone's portfolio. Alt coins are created to make the owners wealthy primarily, or become highly centralised and governed by organisations with selfish intent. The only one free of this is Bitcoin..

For special elections, it is true, BTC is safest to invest in and indirectly in terms of the most similar price if we look at it, but for other than bitcoin, each exchange sometimes has price differences, although not far away.

Well, I agree if you relate many glaring weaknesses such as the potential for centralization and its speculative nature to altcoins but outside there are still many investors who are also focused, placing high hopes on altcoins because there is an assumption that it still has promising potential and growth.

[Faisal2202]

Whilst there are metrics out there for dead coins (no market cap or no liquidity for trading), a coin may still be alive and traded regularly, but still I don't think any alt coins should be in someone's portfolio. Alt coins are created to make the owners wealthy primarily, or become highly centralised and governed by organisations with selfish intent. The only one free of this is Bitcoin..

I don't quite agree with you here, although I was having the same thoughts that BTC is the only one that we should keep in our holding because there is almost no risk of getting scammed in this coin as we know it have potential and it can last longer and in order to save our funds for longer period of time I will definitely chose BTC over any other coin even if BTC is not going to give me high gaines while other alts will definitely do.

But still alts have there own place we should not say every alt maker or developer made an altcoin to make profit while we are also holding our funds in BTC to make profits, making profit is not a bad thing for other and good for us, its good for everyone. I hope you got my point. And secondly, there is high risk of failure of a alt token, but not every developer made an alt to make profit, many are solving real world problem, like matic, bnb and some other as they allowed integration of thousands of dapps and other relevant project onto themselves which helped many newbies to make millions.

[Husires]

The market capitalization is manipulated as some platforms report false trading volumes to make the platform appear larger or have more liquidity, but the real investments and real market capacities for most altcoins are less than 10% of what is reported in the CMC.
The best investors will remember the names of 100 cryptocurrencies, and those who can invest may invest in 30, but most of the remaining cryptocurrencies have no future, an independent wallet, plans for future development, or an active developer team github show that most of them are not developed on a monthly basis.

[boyptc]

Currently the only option to invest in and hold over the long term is Bitcoin. It is the only truely decentralised cryptocurrency, with a finite supply and being used for its original intention on a regular basis - a storage of wealth that is not impacted by inflation, and the ease of making borderless transactions.

It is deflationary and that's why you're saying that it is not impacted by inflation. But I'd say that it's still being affected by world events and news.

But the good thing about its nature is that it recovers quickly. Its resiliency makes it unique from the other assets and investments that's been known by most and even better compared to altcoins.

[Gladitorcomeback]

Trust-wise, there is no doubt that Bitcoin is probably the only cryptocurrency that you can trust for the long term, however, we can't deny the fact that some altcoins have been around for a very long and they have been performing up to the expectations of the market, take ETH as an example. ETH has always been side-by-side with Bitcoin in all market conditions, I know the project had its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, it has never deceived its investors even in the long run.

So to be honest, I wouldn't mind making some investment in cryptocurrencies such as ETH that I know have been around for many years already and have had no problems at all, I know it can be risky because it's an alternative coin at the end of the day, but what's the fun if you are just playing around with a single cryptocurrency and that is Bitcoin? Diversification is a fun and profitable thing.

[dothebeats]

I'm only ever interested in holding bitcoin long-term, but if I see a certain altcoin is promising in terms of its trading capabilities and the hype surrounding it, I won't mind riding it for profit and not for long-term. There are pro-bitcoin people out there that are also riding altcoin markets in order to increase their bitcoin stash, and I see nothing wrong with it. If it's something that people think can make them increase their hold in the bitcoin game, then that's respectable and understandable.

If you are holding only bitcoins, then the goal for you is to put in some more money in it and watch your holdings grow in value over time. But if you're like me who's also looking to be more 'involved' in the trading action all the while not wanting to use bitcoin, flipping altcoins can be a good alternative, just watch which coins will you be trading.

[Miles2006]

Bitcoin is the safest investment choice compared to altcoins no doubt but most people still earn profit with altcoin project. This is not so necessary cause altcoins can be unpredictable so fear of missing out and fear of the unknown is basically not heathy for investors mostly newly investors besides we are dealing with money so we should not risk our investment carelessly. Altcoins project mostly newly projects are known for scam, pump and dumb but not all project so the big question here is how can an investor differentiate between a scam project and a genuine project, all this can actually discourage the investment process. I believe why everyone will go for bitcoin is bitcoin don't act like other coins secondly bitcoin has proven so many times as a trusted investment. The least negative information you can hear an investor mention concerning bitcoin is just about scam and being a victim compared to altcoin project cause sometimes the community are aware they're creating a false project but they do this for gain but let's note bitcoin investment is for the long run

[Solosanz]

Currently the only option to invest in and hold over the long term is Bitcoin. It is the only truely decentralised cryptocurrency, with a finite supply and being used for its original intention on a regular basis - a storage of wealth that is not impacted by inflation, and the ease of making borderless transactions.

I have to disagree on the used for regular basis, I believe altcoins like Doge and Litecoin are more popular for daily usage. Whenever Bitcoin fees went high, the number of transactions in Doge and Litecoin increase too, while Lightning Network is relatively stable.

But of course Bitcoin is only one coin that need to be hold for long term, at least if cryptocurrencies is failed, Bitcoin will be the last coin that stand after all other coins become worthless.

[DanWalker]

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But still alts have there own place we should not say every alt maker or developer made an altcoin to make profit while we are also holding our funds in BTC to make profits, making profit is not a bad thing for other and good for us, its good for everyone. I hope you got my point. And secondly, there is high risk of failure of a alt token, but not every developer made an alt to make profit, many are solving real world problem, like matic, bnb and some other as they allowed integration of thousands of dapps and other relevant project onto themselves which helped many newbies to make millions.

I also agree with you, I will not deny that bitcoin was originally created to be a peer-to-peer currency that would make us independent of 3rd parties. But look at what's going on, we all just use bitcoin to make profit so saying that altcoin projects are created just for profit is bad, this is too biased towards bitcoin.

Regarding choosing to invest in bitcoin or altcoin, I think our investment purpose is to make profits, so if there is a better opportunity than bitcoin, there is no reason to ignore it.

But I also need to remind you not to put too much faith in what altcoins advertise. We are still in the early stages of the cryptocurrency revolution and everything is experimental, it is hard to say that top projects will not fail. We should still be careful when investing whether it is bitcoin or altcoin. So far, other than being mainly used for investment and speculation, I haven't really seen any practical applications of cryptocurrencies.

[kotajikikox]

While you have mentioned some great points I can guarantee that diversification of your crypto portfolio or just investment portfolio holds some of its own advantages. Such as having reduce your risks. If one coin is not doing well you can expect to still gain profit from the other. Bitcoin is not always stable and is constantly fluctuating. So it’s good to explore what else is in the horizon but if you feel safe enough in just investing in one coin the be my guest.

[spectre71]

The big boys have already spoken what they will mess around with.

Bitcoin
Eth
Bitcoin cash
ltc

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/08/22/crypto-exchange-edx-market-taps-anchorage-as-custody-provider/

Sure you can dick around with alt stuff. Lot's of fluff and fomo and one could lose allot quickly.

Great risk and reap rewards but history shines poorly on it.

Edit: Having multiple coins/tokens is NOT diversification or a protection move. Having Shell, Exxon and BP in your portfolio is not diversification, it must be another sector

[DeathAngel]

I think you should be more allocated in Bitcoin than any other asset but to say you should only hold Bitcoin is possibly not right. If people feel more comfortable holding say 80% of their net worth in Bitcoin & 20% spread across real estate & other assets then that’s fine. I certainly would not advise holding a small allocation of Bitcoin.

[fuguebtc]

While you have mentioned some great points I can guarantee that diversification of your crypto portfolio or just investment portfolio holds some of its own advantages. Such as having reduce your risks. If one coin is not doing well you can expect to still gain profit from the other. Bitcoin is not always stable and is constantly fluctuating. So it’s good to explore what else is in the horizon but if you feel safe enough in just investing in one coin the be my guest.

Diversification to minimize risk is only effective when you invest in non-crypto assets, if you invest in altcoins and think it helps you minimize risk then it is a big mistake. The entire cryptocurrency market is still dominated by bitcoin, once bitcoin declines, no altcoin will be able to grow well. Like the current situation, do you see any altcoins giving you profits now that bitcoin is correcting?

I also invest in altcoins and I don't like the rigid idea of only investing in bitcoin and ignoring many potential altcoins. But the purpose of altcoin investment is to seek high profits, not to minimize risk because once bitcoin has problems, the rest will also follow.