Are altcoins, in general, worthless and pointless?

[runpaint]

Altcoins only have one purpose, and that is to get more BTC.

You might as well say that BTC has only one purpose, and that is to get more Dollars.  But that's not necessarily true either.

It's easier to mine a shitcoin on day 1 than it is to mine bitcoin

It's easier to mine a new altcoin on day 1 than it was to mine Bitcoin on day 1.  And people made millions of dollars doing it the hard way.
Now it takes you 30 seconds and a few bucks to rent a $10,000 mining rig for a few hours, and you can even use it to mine multiple coins during your rental. 

You can certainly make a few hundred dollars selling altcoins as soon as you get them, if that's all you want.  But you're giving up the opportunity to hold those coins until they potentially sell for 100 times what you sold them for. 

And, personally, I wouldn't buy a coin if I 100% believed that it was truly worthless, especially not so I could sell it to other people and take their money in exchange for nothing of value.  That would make me a scammer, or a thief, or some other kind of dishonest thing I don't want to be.

[kekek]

Altcoins only have one purpose, and that is to get more BTC.

You might as well say that BTC has only one purpose, and that is to get more Dollars.  But that's not necessarily true either.

It's easier to mine a shitcoin on day 1 than it is to mine bitcoin

It's easier to mine a new altcoin on day 1 than it was to mine Bitcoin on day 1.  And people made millions of dollars doing it the hard way.
Now it takes you 30 seconds and a few bucks to rent a $10,000 mining rig for a few hours, and you can even use it to mine multiple coins during your rental. 

You can certainly make a few hundred dollars selling altcoins as soon as you get them, if that's all you want.  But you're giving up the opportunity to hold those coins until they potentially sell for 100 times what you sold them for. 

And, personally, I wouldn't buy a coin if I 100% believed that it was truly worthless, especially not so I could sell it to other people and take their money in exchange for nothing of value.  That would make me a scammer, or a thief, or some other kind of dishonest thing I don't want to be.

No it is true, the only reason to mine bitcoin is for more fiat. The situation you describe certainly is possible but chances are it won't especially if you look at how many coins are completely worthless now,the coins that never even leave the 10 cent barrier, or the hyped up coins that lost 99% of their value within the first few weeks.

[runpaint]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

What it means is that a coin WILL skyrocket in price if it continues to exist.  That's all it takes - continued existence.

That's what some people saw early on, and they accurately predicted BTC to $1000 on this forum when it was $5.

The difference with altcoins is that any given coin is much less likely to survive, now that there are so many other coins. 
But, as I pointed out in my other "service discussion" thread, it only takes a little to keep a coin going. 

One single person can bring a "dead" coin back to life, and I've done it myself.
Can I keep a coin alive, by myself, for 2 years? 
Maybe, but I won't have to. 
I only have to keep it alive for 6 months, if that's the lifespan of all the other coins.

So the choice is very simple - if you think a coin will be dead next year, sell it all now.
If you think a coin will still exist 2 years from now, don't sell any of it unless you hate money.

[djm34]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Honestly no 
usually what happens is that after a certain time, your wallet stop synchronizing and it is totally over 

[unent]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Honestly no 
usually what happens is that after a certain time, your wallet stop synchronizing and it is totally over 

I found that the wallet stopped syncing for a number of coins I have. Once the network dies the coin dies.

[EvilDave]

i think making another coin market capitalization site, with only the legit coins listed is a good idea.  but how to decide which is legit and which are outright, pure scams is the problem.

or maybe coinmarketcap.com should start delisting proven scamcoins...?

Yeah...like that'll work. Look at BitBay for example.
By now everyone concerned knows it's at least 80% scam.......that's been proven pretty much beyond any doubt by some of the main players.
And yet people are still defending it as a legit project.
Given this level of idiotic belief in something, how in hell can we accurately define a scam and exclude it?

[runpaint]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Honestly no 
usually what happens is that after a certain time, your wallet stop synchronizing and it is totally over 

I found that the wallet stopped syncing for a number of coins I have. Once the network dies the coin dies.

Like I said, that can be fixed by 1 person in 30 seconds at miningrigrentals.com

[MicroGuy]

Here's an interesting view on the Altcoin question from the Litecoin creator.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/litecoin-creator-charlie-lee-claims-litecoin-not-need-development-says-adding-gimmicks-not-help-currency-succeed/

I notice he stole an old Goldcoin quote of mine (and JFK's) in his last tweet. lol  

[unent]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Honestly no 
usually what happens is that after a certain time, your wallet stop synchronizing and it is totally over 

I found that the wallet stopped syncing for a number of coins I have. Once the network dies the coin dies.

Like I said, that can be fixed by 1 person in 30 seconds at miningrigrentals.com

I assume that's only if you have a version of the block chain up to date to the very last block mined. What if your wallet was off for weeks before the last block was mined and nobody else can provide you with a copy?

[runpaint]

But consider this:  Most coins MUST increase in value as time goes on and as more people adopt the coin.
Especially proof of work coins, coins with increasing difficulty, and coins with a set limit on total coin supply.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Honestly no 
usually what happens is that after a certain time, your wallet stop synchronizing and it is totally over 

I found that the wallet stopped syncing for a number of coins I have. Once the network dies the coin dies.

Like I said, that can be fixed by 1 person in 30 seconds at miningrigrentals.com

I assume that's only if you have a version of the block chain up to date to the very last block mined. What if your wallet was off for weeks before the last block was mined and nobody else can provide you with a copy?

Then those weeks are all orphaned because they abandoned the network, and now I have 100% of the hashing power for a brief time until people notice and hop on.

[God27]

A coin that is given utility and helps provide liquidity on a protocol like XRP isn't worthless.

[Triffin]

Are altcoins, in general, worthless and pointless?

Yes
Yes

Why?

Zero barrier to entry ..
Even for BTC ..
How many BTC clones do we need ??

The ONLY advantage to BTC is first mover status

The rest are merely trading tool alternatives to mining as a way
to hopefully make/convert to BTC  ..

Triff ..

[runpaint]

I'm fine with losing 1 dollar 98% of the time and making a million dollars on the other 2%.

[kekek]

I'm fine with losing 1 dollar 98% of the time and making a million dollars on the other 2%.

Ha ha ha ha..... Oh shit this guy is serious.

[runpaint]

Yes, that may seem unbelievable, but I'll also be fine if I lose the other 2 dollars too.  I still have some other dollars that I didn't spend on altcoins.

Please feel free to come back to this thread in 3 or 4 years, and if none of my altcoins ever brought me $10,000 profit then I'll admit you were right and I wasted my time and my hundred dollars.  Well, it's less than a hundred now since I've already sold some percentages of some coins at a profit, but I may even spend another hundred. 

And then the other day when Bitshares PTS turned my 150 coins into 85,000 coins, I sold 1800 of them for about .8BTC.  Oh, I guess that means the other 99 altcoins are paid for, maybe you don't need to come back in 4 years since I've spent a total of nothing.  And I still have the rest of the coins.  It was fun seeing my account value increase by 32BTC overnight, but it didn't last long.  Of course, if there were a lot more people on the exchanges, say in 3 or 4 years from now, something like that could go a lot bigger.

But then, if BTC continues to go up in price, that .8BTC could already have made me a thousand dollars.  But I'm sure you already know exactly what will happen, and - let me guess - it's not that?

And, for example, if Curecoin even approaches its launch price, which some people already paid and believed it to be worth, then I've been making over $100 a day for the past 3 months.  So that adds up to...I guess it would be about $10,000.  Of course maybe Curecoin will never see that price again, and I'll be stuck with the fact that all I did was help cure cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, diabetes, and blindness.  I guess them's the breaks.

Anyway, enjoy your 2 pizzas.  Hope they were worth 5 million dollars each.

[Triffin]

Please feel free to come back to this thread in 3 or 4 years, and if none of my altcoins ever brought me $10,000 profit then I'll admit you were right and I wasted my time and my hundred dollars.   

One approach you might consider is to make an equal dollar bet on the
top 10 to 20 coins by market cap and leave it at that ..

Triff ..

[runpaint]

I've already bet a dollar on 100 different coins, and no wager with this guy has the potential to pay out like those investments.  Unless you want me to put $1.00 in escrow, he gets it if my coin never reaches Bitcoin levels, or he pays me $100,000 if it does.  Anyone who won't give me those odds can save your breath about how I'm stupid to take those odds on the exchanges.  It's my dollar and you're not offering me a better way to spend it.

Enjoy your $5,000,000 pizza, and I'll enjoy my $1.00 crypto lottery tickets.  I'm not even saying don't buy the pizza, I'm just saying it won't kill you to save at least one pizza's worth of coins, just in case.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bitcoin-pizza-day-pies-now-worth-million/story?id=23824128

[Febo]

Lol, i dont think you choose right way to pick the wining horse. If you want to cover all there are more then few 1000.

Pick the best, with:
-bringing something new
-good developers
-solid community

Maybe you will not need to have more then 20 wallets.

[BitcoinBoost]

BitShares, NXT, Ripple, Stellar, Counterparty and possibly MaidSafeCoin could all have real utility in the next year.

[runpaint]

Lol, i dont think you choose right way to pick the wining horse. If you want to cover all there are more then few 1000.

Pick the best, with:
-bringing something new
-good developers
-solid community

Maybe you will not need to have more then 20 wallets.

OK, you put $100,000 in escrow and I'll put in $1.00 for each coin.  Whoever is right after 3 years gets all the money.

While you're doing that, I'll still be buying some coins.  I'll put more than $1.00 in the best coins, but I'll still put $1.00 in the long shots.