WHY THOUSANDS OF CLONES FAILED TO REPLACE BITCOIN

[PhilosopherKing]

bitcoin is open source we all know that one, and because it is open source, anybody can come and copy the code then change a few things about it and then launch it as a better substitute to bitcoin. Plenty projects have been done like that in the past, some just increase the block size and some changed the mining algorithm, and others promised that they will come and fix all the weakness that bitcoin have.

Thousand of promises came, but BTC have still remains in the top and above all its clones. So if person can come fork bitcoin code that easily as people have done, why have so many bitcoin clone failed to become better than bitcoin? The answer is that there is more to bitcoin than just the codebase. Cloning bitcoin code is easy but the hard part that developers cannot recreate is= Trust, Decentralization, Global Adoption, Security, Liquidity. Developers and cloners keeps thinking that this things can be copied overnight, something that biitcoin have ongoingly spent plenty of decades building naturally.

EXAMPLE ONE: BITCOIN CASH (BCH)

The founder of bitcoin limited Bitcoin block to only 1mb. And as adoption grew, there was congestion in network and high transaction fee. To fix that bitcoin network was forked to create BCH. When BCH come out plenty people think that it would overtake bitcoin plenty person even called it the real bitcoin because with it they where able to solve the scalability problem that BTC had. But today BCH is nowhere even close to bitcoin adoption and relevance.

EXAMPLE TWO: LITECOIN (LTC)

This was a modification of bitcoin source code. It uses a scrypt algorithm which is a not the same with bitcoin own. It fast to process transactions, and it even has more relevance than other clones, but it wasn't able to replace bitcoin. Bitcoin is still here and has the trust of the people.

All this clones care about is better feature like faster transactions and big block. They will now copy the code of BTC, and try to upgrade it. So people can go and fork bitcoin for all I care, they cannot still recreate the security and trust that bitcoin has. Bitcoin is different, and it will continue to be ontop of others.

[Curious T]

The thing about Bitcoin is that, if you want to change something, you have to compromise something, and if the compromise is too big a change, people won't go for it. Increasing the block size would have made it difficult for ordinary people to run their own full nodes, and this would have made it more centralised, because mainly mining pools will control the network. And that's what BCH wanted.
Another good thing about it is that, if you feel you have a better idea of what Bitcoin can be, you're free to take the code and do what you want with it and see how it goes, no need to force everyone to do what you want when they are against it.

For a coin to flourish and pass the test of time, the demand must exceed the supply and a lot of things make the demand exceed the supply. How decentralised is the coin? How are decisions made? What are the core values of the coin? Not many people trust a coin that only a few people can sit down in a room and decide what changes to make, because a time will come when your ideas will not be in line with the majority of the users. People think Bitcoin has trust because it was the first cryptocurrency, but that is not entirely true. If it were a shit centralised coin, it would have flopped. People trust in Bitcoin because of how it is designed. 

[Doan9269]

There's no way you can compare an original version of something to a pirated copy, we know what happened when the war began, leading to creation of BCH, one thing is that bitcoin cannot be replaced or tampered with, regardless of a situation and what may come along, everything has been made to be under the protocol that is required of the network and except there is a concession, there won't be any room for readjustment in protocol, ones it comes to digital currency and we are considering cryptocurrency as well, do not expect to see any success that will go ahead of bitcoin.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

You know that an original thing will always be better than its replica or mimics, that's because the first idea of the original owner of that is never the same and will never be the same as that of the person who is trying to mimic that thing. This illustration explains why Bitcoin can not have a copy that will work better or exactly like it.The difficult thing that most of these project developers can not do is what Satoshi did, he created Bitcoin and left it for the benefits of everyone in the world but protect owners of these days will definitely want to take the major profit of their project and will also want to make themselves known to the world.

[Donk1]

Perhaps many of this developers who are trying to clone bitcoin do not fully understand bitcoins values because they often see slow transactions block size and so many more as something that needs to fixed but then all those are what makes bitcoin features unique.​That said to me  forks and altcoins are not a complete failure basically they help us realise something that if bitcoin was the only crypto currency we wouldn't have realised it ,they are more like a test or an experiment for the real gold mine ,which is bitcoin and because they are just tests each failure makes bitcoin more valuable and serves as a proof that bitcoin can't do everything perfectly because if it could then maybe those forks wouldn't have been a failed projects. It's all just a simple logic....

​Overall bitcoins achievements through out the history and Satoshi Nakamoto disappearance are all what makes bitcoin unique and as time goes it value and adoption will keep rising as continues to serve it's purpose as a true decentralized digital gold that's all for me ......

[SatoPrincess]

Since them create bitcoin, many projects don come out way dey claim to be the next bitcoin but all dey fail. The only thing way dey make these projects fit dey see small light no be based on the technology or their use-cases but na based on say people dey find “the best big thing” way go blow after bitcoin so them no mind buy nonsense believing say them go fit make profit one day.

[Frankolala]

I will simply say that all these projects that are duplicates of bitcoin was due to the fact that bitcoin was succeeding, the devs decided to create them in order to milk people off their hard earned money and nothing more. They believe that if they say it's the second bitcoin, investors will rush it and that happened but overtime, the true nature of these coins were revealed as shitcoins because they couldn't meet up with bitcoin uniqueness.

[Mhizlove]

The truth is that not all that glitters are gold, alot of these projects don't survive because it's been built around profit expectations and hype and not around strong foundation or needs like bitcoin. People always go after get rich quick coin instead of understanding how or what makes bitcoin different from the start. The only thing that separate someone that invest from the ones that gambles is understanding and patience.

[Chinesebaby]

Thousand of promises came, but BTC have still remains in the top and above all its clones. So if person can come fork bitcoin code that easily as people have done, why have so many bitcoin clone failed to become better than bitcoin? The answer is that there is more to bitcoin than just the codebase. Cloning bitcoin code is easy but the hard part that developers cannot recreate is= Trust, Decentralization, Global Adoption, Security, Liquidity.

Though any developer may copy the Bitcoin code and try to create something they thought it's better, one thing that remains certain is the fact that they can never create the community Bitcoin have built over the years. The loyal investors, the full decentralized nature and mining opportunity which Bitcoin has built over the years. So no matter how a project tries to duplicate Bitcoin, they can never be like Bitcoin.

Developers and cloners keeps thinking that this things can be copied overnight, something that biitcoin have ongoingly spent plenty of decades building naturally.

That's a wrong information you just passed above. Because Bitcoin have actually existed for just a decade and not decades. Because Bitcoin is just 17 years old, which is a decade and 7years. Launched in 2009 and now is 2026.

[Dogedegen]

You can clone the code, but you can't clone the properties and the network that it has. That is the missing piece of this comparison. Many people who made shitcoins are greedy and never understood Bitcoin, you simply can't copy Bitcoin's decentralization which has grown naturally. Made projects claimed to be decentralized, but they have completely failed. These days in the shitcoin world many projects have even given up on decentralization and are basically fully centralized with extra steps and faking.

The thing about Bitcoin is that, if you want to change something, you have to compromise something, and if the compromise is too big a change, people won't go for it. Increasing the block size would have made it difficult for ordinary people to run their own full nodes, and this would have made it more centralised, because mainly mining pools will control the network. And that's what BCH wanted.

You are correct about this and I want to combine this specifically with the part that the user has written.

All this clones care about is better feature like faster transactions and big block. They will now copy the code of BTC, and try to upgrade it. So people can go and fork bitcoin for all I care, they cannot still recreate the security and trust that bitcoin has. Bitcoin is different, and it will continue to be ontop of others.

This means that the clones do not have better features, it is an illusion or a scam. Visa does not have better features than Bitcoin because its TPS is higher. The examples that you have given have sacrificed one thing to gain another, and in the total they are worse than Bitcoin is. This is the big difference that many users fail to miss. You can't get anything for free here, optimizations can be done but they have a limit after which they are all trade offs. There is not a single shitcoin that has better features overall than Bitcoin. Some coins have unique features that Bitcoin does not have like Monero, they serve their purpose but they come with other risks, so in totality Bitcoin is still superior in its features.

[Donneski]

Most of these clones were only able to imitate the code but none of them can actually recreate the conditions that made Bitcoin become a successful project. To fork open source code can be done by anybody but to fork trust, decentralization, security, liquidity, network effect, global recognition and acceptance isn't something you can fork overnight.

Unlike Bitcoin, most of these clones are usually projected with intense hype around better features but at the end, they still fade away. Bitcoin became a successful project after it survived attacks, criticisms bans, bear markets and still remained decentralized, that's something none of these clones can't replicate.

[Agbamoni]

Just like humans, it is easy to tamper with the physical part of the body, but the soul and spirit will reflect the true character of the person. This is how Bitcoin is. Bitcoin can be duplicated a million times, but the trust, relevance, and conviction people have in Bitcoin are impossible to replicate. Of course, few will see reason to follow the clone. While the majority will remain true to Bitcoin. Bitcoin was not moved by hype, and no marketing was done for it. While the other clones are hyped and advertised. Once the marketing stops, the hype is dead.

[Dogedegen]

Most of these clones were only able to imitate the code but none of them can actually recreate the conditions that made Bitcoin become a successful project. To fork open source code can be done by anybody but to fork trust, decentralization, security, liquidity, network effect, global recognition and acceptance isn't something you can fork overnight.

To write it this way is completely incorrect. You can fork the source code this is true, the other things can not be forked at all. That is not what it means to fork something, those things can not be forked. Remember this difference.

Unlike Bitcoin, most of these clones are usually projected with intense hype around better features but at the end, they still fade away. Bitcoin became a successful project after it survived attacks, criticisms bans, bear markets and still remained decentralized, that's something none of these clones can replicate.

False and misleading better features lead to nowhere. The real truth of the matter is that there is not a single altcoin that is superior to Bitcoin in any way that matters. Anyone can make a completely centralized shitcoin with 1 million TPS, it does not mean anything. The majority of those projects were created because the founders are greedy and want easy money, and many people who are naive to all sorts of scams actually bought into their lies. This is the only reason why we have so many shitcoins at all. If people were smarter and more educated, we would have only a couple of altcoins.

Just like humans, it is easy to tamper with the physical part of the body, but the soul and spirit will reflect the true character of the person. This is how Bitcoin is. Bitcoin can be duplicated a million times, but the trust, relevance, and conviction people have in Bitcoin are impossible to replicate. Of course, few will see reason to follow the clone. While the majority will remain true to Bitcoin. Bitcoin was not moved by hype, and no marketing was done for it. While the other clones are hyped and advertised. Once the marketing stops, the hype is dead.

Actually this is not true, you can't duplicate Bitcoin. If you fork the code to create a new coin that is identical to Bitcoin, that is not a second Bitcoin it is just a shitcoin. That is it, it is not possible to duplicate Bitcoin in any way. The code is the building block of Bitcoin, but is not Bitcoin itself. Being able to duplicate the code is not the same as being able to duplicate the Bitcoin network.

[Tetu100]

I will simply say that all these projects that are duplicates of bitcoin was due to the fact that bitcoin was succeeding, the devs decided to create them in order to milk people off their hard earned money and nothing more. They believe that if they say it's the second bitcoin, investors will rush it and that happened but overtime, the true nature of these coins were revealed as shitcoins because they couldn't meet up with bitcoin uniqueness.

Their is no way you can compare or match something that is authentic, tested and trusted to some kind of imitating stuff. As a matter of fact Bitcoin is the mother of all coin and can't be clone. However, their are some few coins that came out claiming to be on the same level as bitcoin but people that was actually desperate and looking for a quick way of getting rich fell for it because those coin never stand, they fade away in no time and that is more reason bitcoin is more unique and has every outstanding potential than every other coin you can ever think of.

[Hewlet]

There's no way you can compare an original to what's not regardless of how they try to replicate it and that's why all the coins that have come up trying to even make improvement on bitcoin has never stood the test of time.

What they see before trying out to clone Bitcoin is not the same thing that Satoshi has seen before coming up with bitcoin. For Satoshi, it's about seeing a need in the world and providing solution to the need and so far it has grown to this point but for most of the clones we've seen, it's about seeing that bitcoin is doing really well and assuming that they can create a replica that will do well in Same way and that can only lead to sure failure. That has always been the fate of all the bitcoin clones and altcoins we've seen.

[Lenubari]

There's no way you can compare an original to what's not regardless of how they try to replicate it and that's why all the coins that have come up trying to even make improvement on bitcoin has never stood the test of time.

What they see before trying out to clone Bitcoin is not the same thing that Satoshi has seen before coming up with bitcoin. For Satoshi, it's about seeing a need in the world and providing solution to the need and so far it has grown to this point but for most of the clones we've seen, it's about seeing that bitcoin is doing really well and assuming that they can create a replica that will do well in Same way and that can only lead to sure failure. That has always been the fate of all the bitcoin clones and altcoins we've seen.

You made a solid point. Most projects that tried to imitate Bitcoin focused more on copying its success than solving a problem. Bitcoin wasn't created because Satoshi wanted to ride a trend; it was built as a response to flaws in the financial system. That purpose and vision gave it a foundation many clones lack.

That said, not every altcoin exists purely as a Bitcoin copy. Some try to solve different problems Bitcoin wasn't designed for. But history has shown that simply creating "the next Bitcoin" without genuine innovation rarely survives long-term. Originality, utility, and purpose are what stand the test of time, not hype.

[Agbamoni]

Actually this is not true, you can't duplicate Bitcoin. If you fork the code to create a new coin that is identical to Bitcoin, that is not a second Bitcoin it is just a shitcoin. That is it, it is not possible to duplicate Bitcoin in any way. The code is the building block of Bitcoin, but is not Bitcoin itself. Being able to duplicate the code is not the same as being able to duplicate the Bitcoin network.

Lol, who said a clone of Bitcoin is Bitcoin  . Even a baby knows that they are shitcoins.
Listen carefully, no one is saying that if Bitcoin were cloned, it would be Bitcoin but in another form. We are saying that Bitcoin can be cloned, but there will still be some major differences in the code because it cannot be a perfect clone. And also the shitcoin wont behave like Bitcoin as well.