Quote from: ThomasV on August 22, 2011, 06:26:34 AM

Quote from: becoin on August 22, 2011, 06:24:32 AM

If bitcoin is imitating gold then what is it like trading gold for bitcoins?

ixcoin et al are not different from bitcoin

They are different though. They're missing a group of open source developers who really understand the protocol.
Show me evidence of one other chain aside from namecoin which has shown any real sign of a serious development team.
solidcoin has it's source available as a dropbox based zip file.
Any real project will have a proper source code repository (such as at github) and a team of contributors and code reviewers.

You might argue that these shit chains *could* gather such a following of developers - but until they do - their stewardship and future is suspect when compared to bitcoin.
They also need the network effects of a community of users and merchants. No small feat to catch up to bitcoin in that regard!

When attacks occur, or scalability issues need resolving - which project will you trust to have active developers who know how to solve the issues?