Re: The Serious Altcoin Discussion/News Thread - No FUD, Shilling or Trolling.
To Joe Average cryptocurrencies will be nothing more than a neat-o hipster-cool gadget If it goes mainstream, it'll be because it offers something much more profound than that
Because he's pegged the likes of us as nothing more than computer whizzes I doubt he's even remotely aware of the context, let alone a characterisation of the players.
Imagine a stockbroker, when he's on the job, the clients come first. Just transfer that businesslike attitude to the executive ranks of (say) McDonald's, JPMorgan, Barclays, and whatnot. Oooh, don't they just wish. Unfortunately, the attitude doesn't transfer because the team play of the corporate environment is inimical to it.
Ngaio shares my perception that the altcoin scene is throwing up a few reminders of the early days of the web. If the parallel holds true then corporates will be again be slow on the uptake, mainly because to get it requires i) an actual familiarity with the tech and ii) a change in thinking. Both requirements are inherently difficult for corporates to meet.
(A corporate is like a tree of monkeys. Those at the top, looking down, see bright eyes and attentive faces. Those at the bottom, looking up, see only arseholes.)
I wish I had more time to respond, I'm finding this discussion useful because it's prompting me to think more deeply about how cryptocurrency relates to the societal shifts that are occurring both in working life and in what counts as a leisure activity - and that includes taking a broad enough view of the PnD rush to put it into the same category as following the horse racing on telly. For at least that aspect of the altcoin scene, the rules are reasonably well-worked out by now - to the extent where I can just about make out the basics of a pitch for a videogame, Risko-Risto's CryptoCurrency Challenge. Even when playing with real money, it's arguably better entertainment value and a lot cheaper than dropping £40 on a night out at the cinema.
But the main problem that altcoins present to corporate uptake is the volatility of the market ...
Which leads me to the reason why I'm pressed for time --- I've been busy bringing DOACC up to date with recent launches. It's a bit of a rambling collection of metadata and very patchy in places but I've made an effort to assign at least an incept %y-%m date for every single altcoin listed. A few will inevitably be off by a month or three but the vast majority of incept dates are reasonably accurate. Which means I can publish graphs of numbers of altcoin launches by %y-%m ...
Looks like an awful lot of heat has gone out of the market, reflected by a rash of coin creation special offers. During the height of the mid-2014 Cryptocoin Rush, some folks were predicting an after-effect of an increased demand for coins able to demonstrate real longevity. Maybe we should be on the lookout for that or maybe the phenomenon has simply run its course.
A dynamic version of the chart is available on Minkiz (http://minkiz.co/coin/infographics/)
Cheers
Graham