No altcoins without Bitcoin. At least it'll be 100x harder to buy altcoins if exchanges are gone.
Food for thoughts.
I think you could be right, not only because it will get difficult to buy altcoins but also if people stop believing in Bitcoin how can you expect them to believe in any other cryptocurrency.
not really! Some popular altcoins are added to trade altcoins such as doge, NXT, darkcoin. We can get altcoins not just through bitcoin! Ether fiat are directly used to trade altcoins. Altcoins won't die without bitcoin!