Quote from: cellard on January 22, 2017, 05:05:16 PM

Quote from: hv_ on January 22, 2017, 04:20:22 PM

...

- Alts work like a testnet for bitcoins (looking forward seeing Litecoin with SegWit)

- Once an alt feature looks working it might get adopted no matter onchain or in a side chain. (RSK)

- Alts mostly need bitcoin to trade and some bitcoins might be always reserved / locked for this.

- Alts might help to generate a closed bitcoin economy

My favorit comes here:

- Alts work like an infinite fear generator (Hydra) against any try of regulators to bring bitcoin down, since there are too many to kill and its very easy to just create a new one (like a Hydra cannot be killed by chopping off some heads, even the biggest one!) > crypto world is anti fragile and it will stay on this solar system from year 2009 on.

Any other things missing here?

Because we want more bitcoins... and altcoins are the only way to trade and get more bitcoins without having to give your bank accounts and all sort of credentials into all those shady ass exchanges in order for you to trade.

Alts will always exist because people love gambling.

Correct. Since Altcoin is the other way to earn bitcoin by converting it to an exchanger, we can have a lot of bitcoins than just having bitcoin because of the signature campaigns that pays us bitcoin. It is not that bitcoin really needs those Altcoins out there, besides, Altcoins do exist in the first place because of bitcoin. Altcoins have been invented through the idea of bitcoin, so, the right thing to say is, Altcoin needs bitcoin.

On the other hand, Alts doesn't exist because of gambling, it is not connected after all, because bitcoin is the most cryptocurrency that is always using in different gambling sites here in the virtual world.