Quote from: maximian on October 05, 2015, 03:36:50 AM

It seems like the recent news that banks are partnering to experiment with "blockchain technology" took the wind out of Ripple's sails, since being a settlement network for banks was the only interesting thing they had going. Now that banks are going to use their own closed system, Ripple is left searching for a reason to exist. The price is sinking accordingly.

Similarly, the media's attention on blockchain technology (i.e., private or "permissioned" ledgers) is making it clear that there's just very little need for more than 2 or 3 public blockchains, and that they have to have a strong network effect to have any utility and hope for long-term prospects.

Dogecoin is kinda sad in that some people really believed that it had a future, even though it was created specifically as a parody, being purposefully ludicrous and flippant. It was all fun and games until the price charts started steeply rising, and soon a great crowd of speculators assembled, hoping that they were on the launch pad of a new Bitcoin rocket ride. But we're talking about money here, and the rest of the non-internet meme world doesn't have the time or inclination to consider the value of a weird dog-themed cryptocurrency whose proponents communicate primarily in glurge. To outsiders, Bitcoin is weird enough as it is, so Dogecoin never stood a chance.

Bitshares is cool and all, with nifty things like DPOS and pegged assets and whatnot, but in the end it's the network that matters. That's the hard part. Your bells and whistles don't mean anything if nobody uses your coin. Bitshares and NXT and DASH all followed the same trajectory: a fast launch to around a $50M market cap (and higher), and then a slow drift back to earth as no network effect takes hold - no merchants, no media, no trusts, etc.

Litecoin seems to hang in there perhaps because it's just old enough to be entrenched as a secondary cryptocurrency with its own significant network effect. It's interesting to me that a technologically advanced coin such as Monero, with its obvious privacy advantages, can't even come close to eating into Litecoin's value and market share. That is the power of the first-mover advantage and of the network effect.

I can't hate fully on altcoins, though. The do serve as a way for home hobbyists to convert electricity into Bitcoin, people who otherwise might not bother to get into Bitcoin. They're like alternative Bitcoin mining chains.

I get that if you were lucky enough to get Bitcoin early, all alts are just "shitcoins" and you look down on them. and yes most are scams.

But Bitcoin has serious defects though. Like it takes 10 minutes to buy something. Surely you realize that is never going to work in the real world, its basically just play money.

Coins like Dash with instant transactions, that is something serious that people can actually use like they use a credit card. how is that bells and whistles?

But I know, no one is using Dash right now, or the other few alts with something useful over Bitcoin. And its hard to buy them.

Just saying though, and curious. Cheesy