Hi, I am new to all this, but help me understand this. If there is a crypto coin that is very useful and has functional value, not just speculative, say it becomes very expensive. What is to stop someone from just creating their own coin that is the almost identical to it, and using it instead, so high prices are not paid for the other coin? How can all these coins maintain high values, when people can just create as many new coins as they want?
You are totally misunderstood here. Market forces determine the prices of any coin. But sometimes shit coins also get pumped due to pump and dump groups. You can copy any coin and forge into your own how many ever times unless and until someone patents which is something that is not going to happen. High prices for any coin is only because of the achievements of the developer team,the specialty and uniqueness of a coin. We saw ripple finally going up after years and years worth of patience.