Quote from: Lorenzo on June 22, 2015, 05:55:46 PM

Looking at the top 10 coins according to Coinmarketcap, they are mostly older coins (coins younger than 1 year old are in blue):

1. Bitcoin (~6 years)
2. Ripple (~3 years)
3. Litecoin (~3 years)
4. Dogecoin (18 months)
5. BitShares (19 months if one counts Protoshares)
6. Stellar (12 months)
7. Dash (16 months)
8. Nxt (19 months)
9. Banxshares (8 months)
10. Peercoin (~3 years)

The coins which occupy the 11th to 20th positions on CMC are mostly older coins too:

-snip-

If you look at snapshots of CMC from June 2014 (example), you'll notice that roughly 1/2 of the coins in the top 10 and most of the coins in the next 10 were relatively new:

-snip-

Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over? Seeing how so few new coins are able to make it into the top 20 these days and the whole scene is now dominated by older established players like NXT and Dash, is it even worth keeping up to date with new altcoin launches anymore?

I think is because you are applying a very short time frame, if you think about the top 20 in general with some exceptions, the whole altcoin world is like an incubator for many ideas and some of these are the ideas that showed substance and actually gained traction. You can't expect substantial innovations to sprout everyday, so I believe from within that list you are presenting, we will have some successful projects that still have a lot of upside potential.

It is also about timing, timing has been identified as the number one factor why start-ups succeed, also the team behind a project is important. Check out this short Ted Talk (6mins) on why start-ups succeed, I think we should apply a similar analysis to altcoins to identify true potential for success.

The factors they found were important for a project success were:

1. Timing

2. Team/Execution

3. Idea

4. Business Model

5. Funding

Bill Gross: The single biggest reason why startups succeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpx7gpSqbY

There are some parallels with cryptocurrency, but I would say in altcoins funding is much more important, as when you are a company you can get funding by looking for investors, when you are a decentralized currency you don't have that option. The reason why you are not seeing tons of new altcoins is because having a combination of those 5 factors in a way that creates value and specially that you can time correctly is rare.

I would look for altcoins that have the best combination of all those things and invest in that, I think you see the same projects in the top spots for two reasons. You have a first generation of altcoins like LTC and Doge that had the best possible timing with no added value. And then you have a second generation of altcoins like NXT and Dash that actually bring value and innovation.

I believe that the projects that will be successful are those that can have the best combination of the factors described above. I also feel these projects will come from existing project with a certain seniority and not from brand new ones, mainly because the timing is not right for brand new projects, and because the current generation of altcoin projects still has a lot to bring to the table and potential upside, we are not done with this generation yet.