Altcoin investment has always come across to me as pure financial speculation, simply hoping that Altcoin x will rise in price faster than Bitcoin for a given time period. I never get the sense that Altcoin investors want to disrupt the corrupt banking world and replace it with something better, just that it is a way to make a fast buck.
Since this is the hard money thread, I'd like to query the group:
How can one understand that Bitcoin is first and foremost about store of value and still be interested in the idea of an altcoin (alt-ledger) taking over Bitcoin?To me, accepting the precedent that the ledger gets replaced when the protocol does, means throwing away the entire concept of crypto as a store of value. How would the market value any cryptoledger as a store of value if you had to actively switch out of it every few years (months?) as new protocols came along? Worse, you'd have to pick the winners correctly.*
I'm in the "we don't switch ledgers" club, because I think that's the only one the market will ultimately support. Anything else subverts the entire basis of money. It's pushing the proverbial red button on the whole concept of cryptocurrency. The only time to switch ledgers is when it is absolutely necessary to avoid total catastrophe. It should be a once in several centuries event, or at most once a generation (~30 years).
Perhaps the argument is, "We only do it once, because we just got this bit wrong with Bitcoin.
This altcoin is the ideal form. No more changes after that." But to the market, the precedent has been set. Everyone knows what happens when some obscure flaw comes to light requiring another protocol change. Store of value goes *splat* again. The whole concept has been set back decades.
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Lottery ticket investing (Pascal's Mugging investing?) only works when the set of credible lottery tickets (investment candidates) is somewhat limited; if this dynamic takes hold there will be thousands of plausible "next top dogs" because the incentive will be overwhelming to create and cleverly market them.i agree completely.
altcoin early adopting devs and their supporters would rather have everyone switch to their "new, improved" altcoin for maximum individual profit at the expense of Bitcoiners losing value from having to be later adopters. working to improve Bitcoin isn't sexy or motivational enough for most of them despite the fact that any BTC holdings they might have would likely increase in value from their contributions to the Bitcoin protocol. most of them probably don't even have BTC hence there is no motivation for them to become later Bitcoin adopters (even though it is still EARLY).
constantly switching to newer altcoins, even if they represent true improvements, is destructive to SOV. thus, the whole concept of cryptocurrency as a SOV fails miserably. they fail to see this thus their activities are destructive to the SOV concept. ideally, they should help Bitcoin improve and keep all innovations on the mainchain so the market can develop confidence. otherwise, as you say, we could be set back a hundred years.
i think the cryptocurrency market senses this which is why the relative value of all the altcoins to Bitcoin is decreasing. eventually the losses will pile up and there should be a final capitulation of most altcoin supporters in deference to Bitcoin.