re: Bitcoin, Darkcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, et al..
What's the point in having 500 different "altcoins"?
People don't understand technology. I know this, because I'm having hard time understanding why anyone would be against the 20MB fork in bitcoin, i feel completely out of my depth reading these threads, yet my friends think I'm like Neo because I can set up their wifi for them. They are clueless, as are like 98.5% of everyone everywhere when it comes to technology. Having 500 different coins and whatever will keep the masses AWAY from cryptocurrencies, until one or perhaps a handful clearly emerges as the dominant and most widely accepted one.
Also, you will NEVER convince granddad that something called ZIFTERcoin is money. You will never convince someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of technology that it is safe to use something called DARKcoin. It sounds like it was created specifically for buying drugs on the internet. Computer geeks understand what the "dark" in darkcoin is supposed to mean, but we are an extreme minority in that regard. I think these coins will fail ultimately just due to their silly names, regardless of how good the underlying technology might be. Bitcoin at least sounds legit.
My thoughts exactly, all the altcoins are just elaborate speculation currency's with alot of volatile swings in value. Bitcoin is standing on the threshold but the technical barrier will keep it from bringing it to the masses. I believe that the cryptocurrency or follow-up will be the future.
There are alot of coins and great developers but ultimatly, the system gets weakened with each new coin released. If some coins have the same goal, they should combine forces to bring their coins to the next level, meaning making it easy enough to understand for untech-savy people.
I checked out 20ish different coins and their wallets. Bottem line, they are all the same with some minor tweeks. It's nearly impossible to build a valuable coin if the improvements are nihil.. It's time to face that reality and hire economics to work with the crypto community to share ideas.