That's a false dichotomy that reflects the attitude of typical "maximalists." These kinds of broad generalizations are completely useless and they just appear vitriolic and often envious. To me, maximalists are constantly fighting the market. They want so badly for altcoins to die but it will never happen.

The vitriol from maximalists is always strongest when altcoins are in a bull market and the gains are far surpassing Bitcoin. That's no surprise -- as you point out, altcoiners are the same way with their derision of maximalists when altcoins are in a death spiral. This is what happens when speculative technology meets native currency: Greed. Over the years, I've seen countless bitcoiners complain about how much higher the price BTC should be -- if it weren't for those dastardly altcoins stealing the show! It just makes them so angry that there is demand for all these scammy altcoins!

You say that Bitcoin is (or will be) the only "decentralized, stable, well-developed blockchain" and altcoins are limited to "random, premined or ICOed copycat with feature-bloat." On what basis could you prove that? Perhaps you could establish standards for "decentralized, stable, well-developed" and then provide a rundown of the 2000 or so altcoins in existence explaining why each and every one can't fit those definitions?

It's fair enough to criticize a specific altcoin's design flaws -- I've done my share of that. But it looks clueless when you write off every altcoin project in existence (including those that haven't been invented yet) with one fell swoop. That's what people like Saifedean Ammous and Giacomo Zucco do. It's quite ignorant. This sort of dogmatic approach really supports the attitude that Bitcoin is a cult, too.

Most altcoins may be garbage, but this position where maximalists completely write off all non-Bitcoin development -- with little more as evidence than one-off opinions -- is uncompelling to say the least. They should stop being so bitter and accept how markets work. Bitcoin can't possibly implement every worthy change or feature -- not within this century anyway --  and why would we want it to? That's what altcoins are for.

There's also nothing fundamentally wrong with ICOs. They are actually a good thing. Bitcoiners get so upset about government regulation, but then they deride ICOs even though they make fundraising, investment and securities trading more accessible! Do they realize that ICOs leverage the underlying blockchain to allow investors and traders to avoid regulated markets?