That's a good point. At some point they lose viability and mining drops to nothing and the coin dies. This will accelerate once ASICs (like the Titan) hit, concentrating mining among a much smaller pool of miners as thousands of GPU miners (like myself) drop out. A small number of miners, with a more intense interest in good financial decisions because of their capital investment, means a pretty strong reduction in the number of altcoins. Still dozens, maybe more than a hundred, and still room for good quality rollouts of new coins with some real innovation. But I expect the list of active cryptocurrencies to be smaller by the end of the year - with a ton of them lying dead along the way.
I'm looking forward to it, because I'm invested in a few of the more viable ones (Blackcoin, Mintcoin, Pesetacoin, etc.), and their value is diluted amidst the flood.
I'm looking forward to it, because I'm invested in a few of the more viable ones (Blackcoin, Mintcoin, Pesetacoin, etc.), and their value is diluted amidst the flood.
Indeed, anyone with a big scrypt asic or two will easily be able to 51% a huge amount of those new coins, making them worthless.
Darwin predicted it; natural selection will play its part
