Better question is..How many altcoins are one year old?
Quite a lot actually. Easily enough to support the point I'm making and none that endorse your's.
Do you know how long it took BTC to get to the point where it is now?
Bitcoin had the market nearly all to itself for 3 years. That allowed it to gain a massive amount of network effect and adoption. No altcoin is within even 1 thirtieth of Bitcoin's marketcap. You cannot use Bitcoin's track record as evidence that a new altcoin will appreciate in the long term. Altcoins depreciate in the long term due to rapid obsolescence and growth of competition.
Bitcoin has the opposite behaviour. It is unique in that regard. The more alts that appear the less impact each successive one has on Bitcoin's relative marketcap. Not since Litecoin November-2013 has anything got so close despite introducing technologies that are way more advanced than what Bitcoin has.
Issue is that people are impatient and anyone who is impatient will never get big profit out of anything.
I'd say the opposite is true if you look at the trading evidence of the last 18 months. Those who got out at the first post-launch speculative "pump" profited while those who waited a year lost all their money. This was the case for almost every single alt-coin launch I can think of bar none. Just off the top of my head, PPC, XPM, NXT, AUR, DRK, MOON, QRK, WDC, BLC...I could go on add infinitum.
I'm not saying it's not possible that a project break this trend. I'm saying it's unlikely because even if it's successful, that success will immediately attract enough competition into the market to offset any long term gains that weren't priced into its initial speculative valuation.
Winner wasn't the guy who bought BTC in last december after the spike, it's not the guy who bought facebook share after it became popular, it wasn't the guy who invested in google after it became global search engine..
ok, I can't disagree with you there, but you've got to see ALL altcoins as almost a single market. The activity, technology and valuations surf from one project to the next. Developers like new stuff. They'll drop a project like a hot brick when something more interesting comes along which right now is every couple of weeks. Same with traders once they've taken profits from the initial pump. Ask any average trader which altcoins they are in at the moment and 99% it won't bear any resemblance to the ones they were in a year ago.