Let's just face the facts, shall we (even BTC fans/bagholders)
BTC transfers are nerve wreckingly slow.
BTC transfers are disgustingly expensive.
BTC is at the mercy of chinese gigamines.
BTC experiences sudden enormous swings that appear out of the blue.
And every time BTC does "its thang", the altcoins move with it, since BTC is the most widely used base currency at crypto exchanges. This causes unnecessary stress for people who own coins that actually work as a means of payment or have some other intrinsic value.
BTC is a big old lazy animal, its only virtues are being the first and, consecuently, having no 1 market cap now. But that is changing. Just look at the BTC dominance number on Coinmarketcap. Used to be over 60% not too long ago, now it's 34%. And when BTC loses its no 1 status, what follows then? Likely a collapse, that could bring the whole crypto market down. We need to untie well functioning coins from this dinosaur so it wouldn't bring the whole crypto market down when it decides to die.
I actually really like the way you posed this post. I may not agree with it, but it was clear and concise -- something this forum needs more of.
While it's true that BTC transfers are rough at the moment, the lightning network will likely solve most of these issues. Even if it does, and as you stated, bitcoin goes to the bottom, there are many coins ready to take its place. Ethereum has been in the green for the past few weeks while all the other coins have dropped. Essentially, I think we're going to start to see altcoins that IMPROVE on each other rather than just create more and more ICO's and ideas. At that rate, there will be a strong coin to take bitcoin's place.
Agreed. Very well described why it is not a good idea to take btc as base currency. I think most of the people is suffering from this problem but first time I see that is explained in a good way. We all know that btc was the initiator factor but that doesn't necessarily mean that should be taken base currency.