5 things you should know about Bitcoin's competitors #bitcoin #facts

[Coinbuddy]

Most people have heard of Bitcoin, the biggest and most successful of the "cryptocurrencies." But there are dozens of other online payment systems, known as "altcoins," that have sprung up to compete with Bitcoin. Here are some facts about them

There are hundreds of altcoins
One list counts 344 altcoins. Of course, some of these are extremely marginal. But there are 155 actively traded altcoins with a market value of at least $10,000. And 34 of them are worth more than a million dollars.

One of the altcoins, Dogecoin, has managed to cut through the clutter by adopting a silly internet meme as its mascot. That helped its value to skyrocket in late 2013 and early 2014. It's now the fifth-largest altcoin, with a market value of $24 million.

Most altcoins are tiny
If you add up the value of all Bitcoins, the total comes to around $7.6 billion. That's more than 10 times the value of all other cryptocurrencies put together.

Bitcoin's biggest competitor is one of the first altcoins to come on the scene: Litecoin. Litecoins are worth around $274 million. The next-largest, Nxt, is worth just $60 million.

Most altcoins are losing value against Bitcoin
Since the start of the year, the value of one bitcoin has fallen by about 25 percent. But the leading Bitcoin competitors have had a much worse year. The biggest Bitcoin competitor, Litecoin, has lost more than half of its value since January. Another big competitor, Peercoin has fallen by 80 percent. So has Dogecoin.

This might be cyclical, however. Litecoin lost value for most of 2013 only to have its value spike in December. The same thing might happen again.

New altcoins keep popping up

In recent months mature altcoins have been losing value more rapidly than Bitcoin. However, every few months a new altcoin catches the public imagination and leaps into the top 10. The latest example is Darkcoin, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that was officially announced in January. Its market value skyrocketed in May from $1.50 to $11.75.

Today, the value of all Darkcoins in circulation is about $45 million.

The market is still figuring out the future of cryptocurrency
Why do we keep seeing cryptocurrencies appear, skyrocket in value, and then steadily decline? There's a ton of uncertainty about the future of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has dominated the market since its inception five years ago, and most likely it will continue to do so. But it's possible that people will find a technical flaw in Bitcoin that will lead to its collapse. Or someone might invent a competitor that has crucial features Bitcoin lacks.

Most new altcoins try to offer technical advantages over Bitcoin. Darkcoin is focused on privacy. Litecoin is focused on faster transaction times and more democratic rules for processing transactions, a process known as mining. Nxt is designed to have a more energy-efficient mining system that's also resistant to attacks. Dogecoin emphasizes its friendly and enthusiastic community.

Will any of these innovations provide a decisive advantage over Bitcoin? It's not very likely — Bitcoin's popularity gives it a huge advantage. But if a Bitcoin competitor does dethrone Bitcoin, whoever owns a share will become wealthy. So every time a promising new cryptocurrency comes along, a certain number of people make speculative bets on it in hopes it's a Bitcoin killer. So far none of them have been, but people keep hoping.

Source "http://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5848990/5-facts-about-bitcoins-competitors"

[paucho]

thanks for all information

[keithers]

Before another coin can rise and rival BTC, BTC will have to be adopted on a grand scale...I don't see anything coming even close right now, since most companies are just starting to consider BTC (let alone a completely different coin)

[libivan]

The good thing about the altcoins is that it is a sign of freedom, first of all.

Freedom to create and to innovate. It brings new ideas and features that, if proven useful, can even be assimilated by Bitcoin itself.

Competition is always good: it avoids the stagnation that a monopoly may bring.

And having a variety of systems/networks/blockchains working in parallel is also very useful as a way to dissipate risks: instead of keeping all your money in a single cryptocurrency, people will tend to spread it holding three or four different coins that have proven to be useful/honest.

Of course there are also scams, but this will be filtered out.

[Lucky Cris]

Remind me to steer away from that site for info because they evidently know this scene - nOT! The last thing we need is a panic... People thinking that bitcoin has competition, because it doesn't, it never did. LTC and FTC were created to compliment BTC, not to compete. Altcoins worth 10 times less, collectively, than bitcoins is not competing with bitcoin... against each other, sure. But no altcoin should have so much confidence that it considers itself competition -at least none out there now can.

OP, is this article written by you? If not, please remove this garbage... It's confusing the noobs and those already confused. If this was written by you, after removing this thread please educate your a little bit more before making a claim like this.

[libivan]

Remind me to steer away from that site for info because they evidently know this scene - nOT! The last thing we need is a panic... People thinking that bitcoin has competition, because it doesn't, it never did. LTC and FTC were created to compliment BTC, not to compete. Altcoins worth 10 times less, collectively, than bitcoins is not competing with bitcoin... against each other, sure. But no altcoin should have so much confidence that it considers itself competition -at least none out there now can.

OP, is this article written by you? If not, please remove this garbage... It's confusing the noobs and those already confused. If this was written by you, after removing this thread please educate your a little bit more before making a claim like this.

I also do not agree with the OP's text, but... let ideas flow. freedom is better than censorship. May the readers exercise their criticism.

[Lucky Cris]

I agree with freedom of speech... It's presenting opinion as fact that I don't agree with. I didn't have to even read the entire article to know that this author needs to increase his crypto currency knowledge base a bit. So I clicked on link and flicked my iPad screen... Stopped here: "Bitcoin doesn’t have very much to offer ordinary users right now." We want mainstream adoption, not people to think this is so complicated that it's reserved for the geeks! That's so circa 2011/12. But I hope you get what I'm saying.

[libivan]

Sure, I understand you, and I know what you are talking about

Well, here is, IMO, a much better (and realistic) article than the one the op has brought: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=729011

[AlPutino]

I don't view all altcoins (that aren't scams) as competitors, but more complimentary. I think that a handful will survive to serve specific niches in conjunction with Bitcoin as the main.

[Mr Tea]

Alt coins are essentially always going to lag behind because there's just no genuine use for them. Pretty much all of them were created just to try cash in on people who missed out getting in early on bitcoin.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

I think Bitcoiners should consider litecoin a friend rather than foe, it's network is getting stronger day by day on dedicated hardware that doesn't compete with Bitcoin for miners. It's position as 2nd is a nice buffer between Bitcoin and the hundreds other alts.

It is sensible to have a strong stable secure alternate blockchain as a backup for BitPay, coinbase, and others to switch to IF (ok maybe it's a big IF ) Bitcoin should encounter a disaster of some form or another

The rise of litecoin asics is putting pressure on the price as they sell to recoupe costs this can be viewed as a good thing if your accumulating LTC or stomach chirning if your holding seeing the price decline from old highs. In either case I think the next 6-12 months will be quite interesting 

[Wesley]

Remind me to steer away from that site for info because they evidently know this scene - nOT! The last thing we need is a panic... People thinking that bitcoin has competition, because it doesn't, it never did. LTC and FTC were created to compliment BTC, not to compete. Altcoins worth 10 times less, collectively, than bitcoins is not competing with bitcoin... against each other, sure. But no altcoin should have so much confidence that it considers itself competition -at least none out there now can.

OP, is this article written by you? If not, please remove this garbage... It's confusing the noobs and those already confused. If this was written by you, after removing this thread please educate your a little bit more before making a claim like this.

Keep in mind Internet Explorer once had 90 percent market share. Of course, I also doubt that Bitcoin will follow the same path as IE did because it costs nothing to switch from IE to Firefox or Chrome but I don't deny that there isn't a possibility (however minute) that Bitcoin might not stay in the number 1 spot forever.

[Ayers]

as long as they are clone, btc don't need to worry about them, by the time something really new will emerge, bitcoin will rise to a new level of adoption and will stand as a mainstream currency, i'm sure

[Ron~Popeil]

Pump and dump garbage coins aside I see a lot of the alt coins as sort of laboratories for innovation. If someone comes up with a great idea bit coin can adapt it to the protocol so I don't really see a threat to bit coin dominance from it either. Bit coin's ability to evolve is an understated strength.

[guybrushthreepwood]

The market is still figuring out the future of cryptocurrency
Why do we keep seeing cryptocurrencies appear, skyrocket in value, and then steadily decline? There's a ton of uncertainty about the future of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has dominated the market since its inception five years ago, and most likely it will continue to do so. But it's possible that people will find a technical flaw in Bitcoin that will lead to its collapse. Or someone might invent a competitor that has crucial features Bitcoin lacks.

That's easy to answer. A new coin annoubnces itself with a load of hype and hyperbole, loads of newbs flock to it thinking it might be the next bitcoin, it gets pumped and dumped, the devs move on to the next coin. Most of them are scams in one way or another.

[powganima]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B95iqGlvzKUeOWdvUVFlcXVWNE0/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B95iqGlvzKUeOWdvUVFlcXVWNE0/edit?usp=sharing

[Bogleg]

The technology change too fast in the altcoin world.

Based on observation, most of the new coins do not last more than 1 year before it slowly fade away.

[powganima]

The technology change too fast in the altcoin world.

Based on observation, most of the new coins do not last more than 1 year before it slowly fade away.

dont you be disparaging dogecoin.  it is never going away.

[Sheldor333]

Yes they have the same issues with adoption that Bitcoin is having, now if any of them found a way to solve those problems they might be bigger then Bitcoin if we don't act fast and do the same. That is the reality of everything related to internet you have to evolve in order to survive.

[bornil267645]

Everyone should have the chance to establish themselves.