The Insignificance of Altcoins? Potential? Mass adoption? Really?

[evergrow]

How do you cope with the fact that altcoins are entirely insignificant on a broad scale (at this point and time)?  Do you really believe that one altcoin besides Bitcoin would/could have a real stake in going mainstream?  Will there ever be an altcoin/coin that is used by 10 million, 100 million or 1 billion people or more?  call me naive but I honestly don't think there will ever be, I think it's not going to happen.

only thing I could think of would be eg. Ethereum or so used by 100M people all over the world maximum and thats about it in my view.  I don't really know, I'm a realist, not really crypto ideologist-optimist kinda guy as lotta folks here seem to be. I think Cryptocurrency--even Bitcoin--is not very significant in our world today.

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[vipgelsi]

Litecoin has a good chance.

[evergrow]

Litecoin has a good chance.

Man I love your sarcasm 

[TaunSew]

100 million users.  Bitcoin only has an estimated 500,000 to 2 million users.  100 million users would probably result in a capitalization of $1 trillion.  The reason Paypal's capitalization isn't that big is because they just process payments, they're not a commodity like a coin is.

Why Ethereum?  More likely it'll end up as another Ripple or worse yet (more probable) another Mastercoin.  Don't worry, Vitalik can probably get another job somewhere within Goldman Sachs' or he can start a boy band.


Really the internet back in the late 1980s was bigger than Bitcoin currently is.  Bitcoin doesn't seem to be expanding its' userbase due to all the bad PR surrounding it.

I think the Anglophone world is too hostile towards cryptos, most room for growth will be in East Asia and Eastern Europe.  NODE and NEM seem like good contenders for that.  NEM last I check is led by a Japanese developer and a lot of their active community members are Asian.  NODE is Ukrainian and Ukraine is crazy about BTC (5000 bank terminals accept BTC).

[PolarPoint]

As much as I would like to see a quality altcoin succeed, I do not think there is a market for an altcoin when bitcoin is so cheap. May be when bitcoin hits $1000 again, we may need an alt to handle small transactions.

[evergrow]

I'm holding out for NEM and NODE.  NEM's main developer is Japanese and they have active community members from Japan, China and Vietnam.  NODE could replace BTC in Eastern Europe for the same reason Yandex / VK replaced Google / Facebook in that region in usage.

Hi.  Is this sarcasm or are you being serious?
Argument NEM:

main developer is Japanese and they have active community members from Japan, China and Vietnam

Argument NODE:

could replace BTC in Eastern Europe for the same reason Yandex / VK replaced Google / Facebook in that region in usage

Sorry but unless you're sarcastic both of these arguments don't make any sense to me. Care to elaborate?

Why Ethereum you say? Frankly I don't think it's a great project myself. What I see, though, are faces, funding and a plan, points that the "public" cares about. Mass adoption means pleasing the public, not pleasing nerds. It's a huge difference.

[TaunSew]

In Eastern Europe's case - that region is full of tech examples where domestic startups are more popular than their American counterparts.  Use of VK and Yandex exceeds use of Facebook and Google in that region.   Bitcoin around the world is often regarded as being American (even a lot of people think Satoshi is a pseudonym and/or a Japanese American in California).


You seem to be butt hurt over something and I don't know what exactly.  As I said before - Bitcoin only has 500,000 to 2 million users, this is nothing in the grand scheme when this technology will likely have billions of users someday and Bitcoin in the past two years has had very complacent development and marketing.

[Momimaus]

How do you cope with the fact that altcoins are entirely insignificant on a broad scale (at this point and time)?  Do you really believe that one altcoin besides Bitcoin would/could have a real stake in going mainstream?  Will there ever be an altcoin/coin that is used by 10 million, 100 million or 1 billion people or more?  call me naive but I honestly don't think there will ever be, I think it's not going to happen.

only thing I could think of would be eg. Ethereum or so used by 100M people all over the world maximum and thats about it in my view.  I don't really know, I'm a realist, not really crypto ideologist-optimist kinda guy as lotta folks here seem to be. I think Cryptocurrency--even Bitcoin--is not very significant in our world today.

Maybe you are right. It is really hard to predict.
And I think Bitcoin is something like a dead coin walking. I am hoping that it is lasting as long as another coin is getting ready for mainstream. Bitcoin is extremly important to build the infrastructure for other coins.
Ethereum is besides NXT the only project which is handled big enough and professionel enough to succeed.
But maybe another coin will come to join the party. But at the moment there is none.
My guess at the moment is, it will be a battle of Ethereum and NXT.

[evergrow]

You seem to be butt hurt over something and I don't know what exactly.

TaunSee, not at all, I'm trying to understand peoples' vigorous optimism about a cryptocurrency scene that is extremely insignificant as of now (I consider myself a part of this scene as I do own coins and post here). That's not being butthurt, don't know why you would think that way unless you dislike my topics' content.

this technology will likely have billions of users someday

Why do you think this way? What makes you so convinced one day billions will use cryptocurrency? what leads to this great hope?

Thanks for elaborating by the way

[TaunSew]

You seem to be butt hurt over something and I don't know what exactly.

TaunSee, not at all, I'm trying to understand peoples' vigorous optimism about a cryptocurrency scene that is extremely insignificant as of now (I consider myself a part of this scene as I do own coins and post here). That's not being butthurt, don't know why you would think that way unless you dislike my topics' content.

Well.. are you talking about the whole scene or just the alternates?  As I said twice now I think Bitcoin only has 500K-2M users.   This is compared to payment processors like Paypal which are almost 150 million.

Digital currencies will be bigger some day as there are utilitarian uses for them.  

[sgi02]

Some altcoins are VERY innovative, and bring a lot to the the table versus BTC. The vast majority however, only serve as a vehicle to gain or lose BTC.

[BitJohn]

How do you cope with the fact that altcoins are entirely insignificant on a broad scale (at this point and time)?  Do you really believe that one altcoin besides Bitcoin would/could have a real stake in going mainstream?  Will there ever be an altcoin/coin that is used by 10 million, 100 million or 1 billion people or more?  call me naive but I honestly don't think there will ever be, I think it's not going to happen.

only thing I could think of would be eg. Ethereum or so used by 100M people all over the world maximum and thats about it in my view.  I don't really know, I'm a realist, not really crypto ideologist-optimist kinda guy as lotta folks here seem to be. I think Cryptocurrency--even Bitcoin--is not very significant in our world today.

This argument was and has been used on Bitcoin. Some altcoins will survive and make waves.

[tex99]

Some altcoins are VERY innovative, and bring a lot to the the table versus BTC. The vast majority however, only serve as a vehicle to gain or lose BTC.

People are prepared to try new inovations on alt coins that the bitcoin developers would never consider trying on bitcoin. Eventually someone might create an alt with innovations that become as popular as bitcoin. That alt might become mainstream.

[CoinHoarder]

Some altcoins are VERY innovative, and bring a lot to the the table versus BTC. The vast majority however, only serve as a vehicle to gain or lose BTC.

People are prepared to try new inovations on alt coins that the bitcoin developers would never consider trying on bitcoin. Eventually someone might create an alt with innovations that become as popular as bitcoin. That alt might become mainstream.

+1 to these two posts

The most innovative coins will win out. Just like how the most innovative businesses crush less innovative businesses. Cryptocoins are open source and thus there is no patent they can seek, or proprietary secret formula, that would make them safe from not having to improve upon themselves and innovate and yet still expect to be successful.

It will be (and is) a very competitive market. For every 100 alt coins that are released maybe 1 will be a success. You should only invest what you can afford to lose in alt coins and diversify your portfolio amongst the most promising cryptos, while leaving the majority of your crypto investments in Bitcoin.

My 2 satoshis

[sneakycoin]

So the coins that are likely to succeed are those with:

1. Trusty developers. This is the most important one. Without trust, the coin is doomed. (check out this thread for POD ratings: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=568166.0)

2. Features. Does the coin offer something else than bitcoin? Does it have any unique features that makes it stand out? Does it have a solid roadmap for upcoming releases? Does the devs live up to their promises?

2. An active community. If noone has faith in the coin or is interested in it besides making quick money, it will never grow.

3. Marketing. To reach a bigger audience it needs marketing. This can be both from the devs or the community.

I chose my coin investments by those criterias. Trying to "game" the market and make a quick buck is just gambling, and it is mostely rigged by pump and dump groups.

I chose XST as my primary coin to invest in, but you may have your reasons and biases for choosing your investments. What is clear is that if bitcoin fails, for security or other reasons, altcoins will quickly become very very popular and only the most promising ones will be adopted.

[CoinHoarder]

So the coins that are likely to succeed are those with:

1. Trusty developers. This is the most important one. Without trust, the coin is doomed. (check out this thread for POD ratings: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=568166.0)

2. Features. Does the coin offer something else than bitcoin? Does it have any unique features that makes it stand out? Does it have a solid roadmap for upcoming releases? Does the devs live up to their promises?

2. An active community. If noone has faith in the coin or is interested in it besides making quick money, it will never grow.

3. Marketing. To reach a bigger audience it needs marketing. This can be both from the devs or the community.

I chose my coin investments by those criterias. Trying to "game" the market and make a quick buck is just gambling, and it is mostely rigged by pump and dump groups.

I chose XST as my primary coin to invest in, but you may have your reasons and biases for choosing your investments. What is clear is that if bitcoin fails, for security or other reasons, altcoins will quickly become very very popular and only the most promising ones will be adopted.

You should look beyond simply a developer you can trust. There is a difference between a developer with an IQ of 110 compared to 140. There is also a difference in between a skilled developer with decades of programming experience compared to someone with just a college degree in computer science. Furthermore, I look for developers that are heavily invested in their projects as they are more likely to be dedicated to them, and ones that do not overextend themselves across multiple projects a la jl7777.

Your points as to features are good, I would also add ease of use and improved features upon Bitcoin.. not necessarily new features although that is good too if they are innovative enough to stand out as you said.

I agree communities and marketing are very important, but perhaps less important than the above two factors (in my opinion), as if your ideas, innovation, and implementation are solid then the community and thus marketing is sure to follow. I think most marketing is formed by communities and the best form of advertising is by word of mouth, so communities and marketing are mutually inclusive and after effects of solid innovation and implementation.

Also a few more things I think are important:

Making sure that it has a fair and decently distributed release. Innovation can overcome this (ripple), but it will be a permanent black eye that people will always use against the crypto and it takes revolutionary innovation to overcome.

Possibility of achieving a network effect. If another larger crypto is already doing on what you plan to do, it will be tough to overcome their network effect. Also, finding cryptos that are doing something really different are more likely to succeed off of achieving their own network effect.

Does the crypto solve a problem in society or a problem in other cryptocurrencies that could cause it to have value in the future and overcome a larger cryptocurrency's network effect? I don't think minor changes/improvements are enough to overcome network effects.

Maybe these things were covered in your more generalized statements, but cryptocurrency analysis can never really be extensive enough. I am sure I am forgetting a few things.

[username18333]

Great Empire of Earth, an 240 * 10¹⁵ km³ empire centered about Earth, has an official state money, Great Empire Coin.

GE coins are issued gratis, becoming a liability of those first utilizing them.

[murderouskirk]

Nobody in alts is really trying to overtake BTC, this is a bit of a stigma. What we are doing here is competitively developing upon and expanding the bitcoin architecture. Bitcoin is very static.. it can't really be changed anymore. Altcoins? Yeah they die and improve every day. It's more risky and volatile yes.. but some of them are doing really well and coming up with incredible innovations. It's more about the innovations than the price.

An altcoin may not overtake BTC, but I can promise you the next big Crypto company will come out of alts.. not BTC. And when a method is developed to apply a better, more seamless purpose to cryptocurrency that actually draws the masses in again.. yeah that'll be alts.

You should do some research into what is actually going on here. I suggest starting HERE.

Ironically I was just talking about people exactly like you in that thread.

[username18333]

Nobody in alts is really trying to overtake BTC, this is a bit of a stigma. What we are doing here is competitively developing upon and expanding the bitcoin architecture. Bitcoin is very static.. it can't really be changed anymore. Altcoins? Yeah they die and improve every day. It's more risky and volatile yes.. but some of them are doing really well and coming up with incredible innovations. It's more about the innovations than the price.

An altcoin may not overtake BTC, but I can promise you the next big Crypto company will come out of alts.. not BTC. And when a method is developed to apply a better, more seamless purpose to cryptocurrency that actually draws the masses in again.. yeah that'll be alts.

You should do some research into what is actually going on here. I suggest starting HERE.

Ironically I was just talking about people exactly like you in that thread.

I would not imagine emp. Limakasidios so trifling as to establish a coin for non-use.

[xcapator]

I think there are still a lot of things (security being one of the bigger sticking points) that are going to have to change for alt coins to gain mass adoption.