Quote from: BitcoinTate on December 28, 2013, 03:25:47 PM

After watching several new alt coins launch and die over the past year I thought I would offer some suggestions & insights to future developers.

1) Be Innovative
There are 10,00 Litecoin & Bitcoin clones out there, or at least is seems like it. If you are not bringing something new to the table then why even bother? This doesn't always have to be a technical innovation as I would argue Doge brought to us a lesson in crypto mass psychology. People don't like looking in their BTC wallet and seeing they have 0.000189 BTC. They want to see they have 189,000 Doge, Litecoin, Bitcoin or whatever it may be. Our brains are not used to calculating monetary transactions to 6 decimal places. This is why I think coins with billions of coins could surpass Bitcoin one day. The other lesson to be learned by Doge is to have some emotional appeal. This will help bring large amounts of new people in just as Doge has. (FYI I really don't like Doge, but I see the positives in it.)

2) Pre-Mine No More Than 1%
I think every new coin I have seen besides Digitalcoin has been accused of being a scam pre-mine coin. While I understand the need for development and giveaways etc. a dev doesn't need to pre-mine 25% of all coins. I would also have a ledger recording where and how the 1% was spent. This should be publicly available on the coins website. By being open and transparent much more trust can be placed in a coin. Given the way the block chain works this would not be a hard thing to do.

3) Announce The Coin Launch 2 Days Ahead of Time
This will give ample time for people to hear of the new coin so they can start mining at zero hour. While Earthcoin was only pre-announced by a few hours I feel this helped with the coins current success. By allowing as many people as possible to become invested in the coin from the beginning you are allowing for a few things. First, you will have a larger distribution of coins from the beginning.

Second, with more hash and more people you are less likely to experience a 51% attack that often kills a new coin within hours of launch. Finally, you will build a solid foundation of a community as people often like to say "I was there from the beginning" and become much more psychology invested in that particular coin.

4) Good Name & Logo
While you would think this should be obvious, most often it seems devs neglect this in their rush to pump & dump. I would say as of right now if you don't have a good name & logo even in the pre-announce thread your coin is dead on arrival. There are to many options out there right now to waste you time on a crap coin.

I have one simple name & logo test. Could I one day see my grandmother going into the store and purchasing something with her [insert coin name here]. I do not ever see my grandmother buying stuff with her BBQcoin, Hamstercoin, Hobo Nickels etc. I could one day see her using Digitalcoin, Stablecoin, Earthcoin etc.

5) Bitcoin Won't Be The Top Coin Forever
Technologically speaking over the last twenty years being the first of its kinds doesn't mean a new tech will last forever on top. In fact more often than not a new tech is often surpassed within a few years. Think of Netscape as a browser... where is it today? What about Lycos as a search engine? Google came along and did things better. What about Myspace being overcome by Facebook? Or even Napster?

There are some serious issues arising with Bitcoin. The main being the centralization of hash power with the emergence of ASIC mining companies. This goes against why Bitcoin was founded. When the common person cannot mine and secure a coin I feel a coin will enter into a slow decline & death.

6) There Is Room For More Than 1 Coin
We have Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari & Opera. We have Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express. We have Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Wells Fargo etc. Why does there have to be one coin that's on top? It makes no sense to embraces this winner take all mentality in the alt community. By having several choices based on different technologies we are making cryptos more secure. If one dies or is compromised there are ten more to take its place.

To help people understand the importance of Bitcoin I often tell them the last time we saw a major monetary innovation like this is when the Bank of England first started printing paper bank notes in 1694. Crypto is here to stay. Power to the people!

Just felt like saying thank you. You sum up how I feel about the whole scene in better words than I could. I don't mind coins not called Bitcoin or Litecoin. I even mined Catcoin because it could have potential being the scrypt version of Bitcoin. If pushed right, people could take it more seriously. There are a few alt coins out that have my respect..and a whole lot that are clutter. More quality and less throwing random and seeing what sticks.