In regards to BTC, I believe, at least for now, that BTC is essential as the backbone of the cryptosphere, not only because of the trading pairs but also because of the general sentiment which is important. All the people who want BTC to fail at this moment are delusional thinking that their alt coin of choice would increase in value. Mainstream sentiment would be destroyed.
I completely agree. But I don't think anyone is saying they want btc to fail. Just that they think it will. Very different thing. And sentiment will recover in time. This whole sector is probably going to behave a lot like the dotcoms. It's wildly overbought because people are excited about technology that is indeed revolutionary just like people overbought tech stocks because the internet was so revolutionary. But the amazons and apples are already here, they will survive the correction and be MUCH bigger after just like amazon and apple are now after the dotcom crash. Also if i'm right and we are going to see our own dotcom crash and recovery, a recovery with bitcoin leading the charge will be a more centralized world than one without. It could be better in the long long run for bitcoin to actually die. For decentralization's sake.
Well, actually the BCH crowd wants BTC to fail, and their actions are imo quite toxic and probably responsible for the dip at the moment. Also, quite a few people at the /r/CryptoCurrency reddit, foolishly believing that BTC is holding the success of their favourite alt back.
Which currency do you think could replace Bitcoin? Monero is better in every regard but I feel that once atomic swaps are here Monero would actually benefit even more from a non-private currency like BTC in the sense that it would make it even more resistent.