Why not just start a Bitcoin2 parallel to Bitcoin?

[cbeast]

This might be the dumbest idea ever. With merged mining already in place, why not just start a parallel blockchain with exactly the same protocol that starts with a different firstbit (for lack of a better term) to differentiate it. I'm not suggesting this be done anytime soon, but I wonder if it wouldn't attract people into becoming early adopters of an already proven technology. I feel this will attract and familiarize people with the technology, and then eventually make them realize that the original is the gold standard.

[Dan The Man]

So a new currency with a late start and no advantages. I think I will keep my Bitcoin1. There is a forum for alternate currencies though, and many have tried. Most aren't worth much.

[cbeast]

So a new currency with a late start and no advantages. I think I will keep my Bitcoin1. There is a forum for alternate currencies though, and many have tried. Most aren't worth much.

Technically it's not an alternate currency and requires no development discussion. It is exactly the same as Bitcoin in every way except for the firstbits.

[evoorhees]

So a new currency with a late start and no advantages. I think I will keep my Bitcoin1. There is a forum for alternate currencies though, and many have tried. Most aren't worth much.

Technically it's not an alternate currency and requires no development discussion. It is exactly the same as Bitcoin in every way except for the firstbits.

What value is there in this second currency?

[cbeast]

So a new currency with a late start and no advantages. I think I will keep my Bitcoin1. There is a forum for alternate currencies though, and many have tried. Most aren't worth much.

Technically it's not an alternate currency and requires no development discussion. It is exactly the same as Bitcoin in every way except for the firstbits.

What value is there in this second currency?

Vanity. I know, like I said it's not a great idea, but it may be inevitable. Some entities may just love the idea out of pure vanity.

[kangasbros]

This might be the dumbest idea ever. With merged mining already in place, why not just start a parallel blockchain with exactly the same protocol that starts with a different firstbit (for lack of a better term) to differentiate it. I'm not suggesting this be done anytime soon, but I wonder if it wouldn't attract people into becoming early adopters of an already proven technology. I feel this will attract and familiarize people with the technology, and then eventually make them realize that the original is the gold standard.

You can start it yourself, if you want. It is pretty easy to fork the bitcoin source code and start this, I think.

There is too much discussion in the bitcoin community "why don't we do X" or "is there point doing Y" or "what is the point of doing Z". If you think that something is worth doing, just do it. Markets will decide later if they agree with your idea.

(But otherwise, alternative chains haven't seen much success.)

[Mousepotato]

You may want to check out Litecoin in the Alternate Cryptocurrencies section.  It's one of the few alt chains that benefits from an active dev effort and is making headway in the market with more shops accepting it.  Plus it's still uber-cheap right now, so if you missed the initial launch, you can still buy a few thousand of them for not too much money.

[codymanix]

There were (and some still are) lots of alternate blockchains (=other bitcoin versions). Most of them failed, the rest doesn't got very much attention.
Why should they? None of them have great benefits over the real bitcoin. Bitcoin is good, ripe and stable.

Alternate blockchains are a good way to do research and experiment with new features, but unless they are able to fix a mayor flaw in bitcoin, they won't be seriously used as a currency.

[kangasbros]

You may want to check out Litecoin in the Alternate Cryptocurrencies section.  It's one of the few alt chains that benefits from an active dev effort and is making headway in the market with more shops accepting it.  Plus it's still uber-cheap right now, so if you missed the initial launch, you can still buy a few thousand of them for not too much money.

I recommend to stay away from buying these & wasting time on them, unless they really can prove that the alt chain can provide some real benefits. Usually those alt chains are very scammy, and irritating because they distract people from real development efforts.

[cbeast]

This is just a twunk. I keep hearing from people that say "Bitcoin is a great idea, but I think I'll wait for Bitcoin 2.0." I hear this a lot. I am not afraid of another exact competition for Bitcoin for the same reason I am not afraid that Litecoin or any other crypto will match Bitcoin.

This is not about logic, it is a marketing tactic that may or may not catch on, but either way would answer the people that complain about early adopters.

BTW, while I like the idea of Litecoin, I'm gonna wait for Litecoin 2.0  

[Stephen Gornick]

This is just a twunk. I keep hearing from people that say "Bitcoin is a great idea, but I think I'll wait for Bitcoin 2.0." I hear this a lot. I am not afraid of another exact competition for Bitcoin for the same reason I am not afraid that Litecoin or any other crypto will match Bitcoin.

This is not about logic, it is a marketing tactic that may or may not catch on, but either way would answer the people that complain about early adopters.

Who are you, and what have you done with cbeast's body?

[cbeast]

This is just a twunk. I keep hearing from people that say "Bitcoin is a great idea, but I think I'll wait for Bitcoin 2.0." I hear this a lot. I am not afraid of another exact competition for Bitcoin for the same reason I am not afraid that Litecoin or any other crypto will match Bitcoin.

This is not about logic, it is a marketing tactic that may or may not catch on, but either way would answer the people that complain about early adopters.

Who are you, and what have you done with cbeast's body?

Recall how I premised this thread:

This might be the dumbest idea ever.

[Boussac]

Let me try to recall how mathematical induction works  

If coin(n+1) has value because coin(n) exists and coin(n+1) can be created at zero marginal cost then ..
the market for coins can be expanded indefinitely
wow
wait, the convergence value must be zero then right ?

But the markets for coins now is owned by bitcoin: the only reason the alt chains exist in the first place is because they conveniently use the bitcoin forum as their bootstrap strategy. Without the bit coin forum they would have minuscule audience and zero network effect.

[interlagos]

If it can be merge-mined with bitcoin, Luke will shut it down!
Coiledcoin anyone?

[Killdozer]

Have you completely missed the whole alternative chain explosion that started a couple of months back?

[asdf]

dumbest idea evah!

[cbeast]

I'm unlocking this thread to make another argument. Instead of thinking of Bitcoin2 as an alternate blockchain, think of it as time-shifted Bitcoin. The reason I think this might be a good idea, is because it is usually one of the first things that comes to people's mind when they first hear about Bitcoin. Another thing that comes to mind is that it is inevitable that others will always want to start their own crypto currency. Why not just anticipate this and simply release a new blockchain every time the blockchain halves. This way each generation becomes a new "crypto element" to trade. Bitcoin is gold, Bitcoin2 is silver, etc. If they are merge mined, they should all have similar attack resistance.

Again, this may seem like a dumb idea, but it creates a competing currency to our own Bitcoin investment. Believe me, I do have skin in the game and think this may be one of the best things we can do. Creating our own competition ensures that the original Bitcoin will be the gold standard.

[markm]

Coiledcoin *is* your time-shifted bitcoin. It even put in the BIP16 or BIP14 or whatever it was before the main bitcoin did.

There are tons of altcoins, the problem is not enough actual merged-mining is happening. Luke Jr probably owns the largest hoards of many of them simply because his pool's users apparently don't mind how many altcoins he makes for himself using their hashing power.

He seems to have stopped crushing coiledcoin some time ago, though I don't know if he simply switched to plain old merged-mining it and continuing thereby to amass a hoard of it.

The negativity toward altcoins is a really bad thing in my opinion, since the more toy/play coins that work like bitcoin the better, lots of toys of a thing generally goes along with social acceptance of a thing. Gun toys for boys, for example, are probably no coincidence but part of promotion for real guns, and so on.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? And a form of marketing?

-MarkM-

[cbeast]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? And a form of marketing?

-MarkM-

The best place to build a fast food franchise has always been near a McDonald's.

I'm thinking even beyond this. Somebody else had the idea with coiledcoin, but really this needs to be a concerted effort by the Bitcoin community in order to keep party poopers from pissing in the punch bowl. Think about this. If anyone has reservations about getting into mining and then not only have a new opportunity to get in early, but also it will have a high difficulty right from the beginning, along with a strong network security. Their investment would be safe, and they would also probably choose to merge mine Bitcoin as well just because they can. Win-win.

[markm]

Yes, exactly. I have always seen a proliferation of blockchain based coins as being good for bitcoin, it shows the concept is good by the fact that everyone and their game is adopting it, and I believe that there will also be a tendency to more and more leave all the hassle of dealing with fiat to bitcoin, so more and more of the altcoins will let bitcoin serve as the curtain behind which the whole can of worms of "real money" laws and regulations and all that crap hides, entrenching "real actual original bitcoins" more and more as the gateway between the cryptocoin world(s) and the dinosaur world of fiat they hope to somehow eventually leave behind.

Thus probably for anyone who is still using fiat as a measure of value will tend to always see bitcoin as more valuable than the other cryptocoins, and most of the cryptocoio see bitcoin as the most valuable as long as a lot of their users still have some desire to obtain fiat.

It is just very very horrible mess to try to use "real bitcoins" for a lot of things IF/WHILE "real bitcoins" are intended to become as officially a "real money" as possible, since "real money" is just a really crappy thing to get involved with while governments screw it around with all kinds of regulations.

Therefore unless the intent is for bitcoin to NOT become in any way considered to be "real money", it is best to NOT use bitcoin for a whole bunch of applications ranging from equipping monsters in roleplaying games with treasure through paying spies to spy on rival galactic empires or corporations in galactic scale games.

We need toys people can play trading games with, currencies the forex markets in games can trade, currencies to use to buy stocks and shares in games themselves and within the games in things existing within the games. So players can "invest" their time and hashing power and so on not only into loot for their character or empire or corporation but also maybe into the various games themselves, the development of 3d graphical representations of those games, etcetera etcetera etcetera holodecks here we come...

-MarkM-