Bitcoin clone with new block chain - what would happen?

[phelix]

Somebody will try it sooner or later.

I think some people will jump in and mine, to be early, just in case. Then, will it fade out because it is less popular than the main chain and nobody will believe in its worth?

What if some big corporate bank group tries it, with heavy advertising?

Could miners form some kind of alliance and somehow harm/fight the clone?

I know there is testnet, those coins are not worth anything, are they?

If anyone is starting a clone let me know, I would get some coins just out of curiosity.

[MoonShadow]

A competing chain has a chance only if it offers a distinction from Bitcoin that is an obvious advantage over the Bitcoin network, and one that the running network is incapable of adopting.

I find that unlikely.  Even if such an advantage is discovered, the first to market advantage is huge.

[kiba]

I know there is testnet, those coins are not worth anything, are they?

Sure they are. I brought 100 testcoins for 1 BTC. Now it's even worth less.

* kiba needs it for testing purpose.

[phelix]

A competing chain has a chance only if it offers a distinction from Bitcoin that is an obvious advantage over the Bitcoin network, and one that the running network is incapable of adopting.

I find that unlikely.  Even if such an advantage is discovered, the first to market advantage is huge.

What about early adoption and being able to pile a big amount of the new coins? That might be enough for a lot of people who are angry they heard of bitcoin late.

[error]

I have about 700 generated testnet coins available.

[ByteCoin]

Even if such an advantage is discovered, the first to market advantage is huge.

Except when being well established becomes a liability. It's already difficult or virtually impossible to make large changes to Bitcoin to introduce new functionality because it would jeopardize the existing functionality which is now worth a lot of money.

A newcomer with better features which learned the lessons from bitcoin's problems would have a chance.
Facebook was a late arrival to the social network software after Friendster and Myspace.

ByteCoin