The main thing that got bitcoin off the ground was that businesses and services took a chance on bitcoin, accepting payment with an otherwise useless currency at the time and now look where it's at.
I disagree in part. Silk Road got Bitcoin off the ground; when the feds closed Silk Road it became more commercially appealing. After the Feds took it out of the picture a very toxic element associated with the currency was removed. If that site had never existed BTC would probably be worth nothing
Very true, and from the standpoint that bitcoin-to-USD you are absolutely correct. However, I would point out that Bitcoin even in it's infancy had a value because some businesses decided to take a chance and accept the coin as valid payment over cash. Likewise the Silk Road incident, each of the drugs sold had a "street value" which in turn could be bought with Bitcoin instead of hard cash. But because it was an accepted currency that applied an amount to say an asset or service, the Bitcoin automatically gained a value whatever the USD equivalent turned out to be.
Right now we're generating a currency with no pre-determined value as of yet. Again, infancy and way to early to tell. I think also that what we will find in the course of the next couple of years is that digital currency, for lack of a better cliche, really will become the wave of the future. Too many positives, not enough negatives. The Bitcoin single-handledly devalued every major currency that you can put in your hand, and that's saying something for a system that only came out 5 years ago.
Ever since SR, mining has ballooned to the point everyone is trying to become the next Bitcoin and corporations are spending $30,000+ on mining rigs to get in on the action. It's only a matter of time before the currencies that have the strength will stick around while the rest are abandoned (much like many Altcoins out there). Topcoin already has a leg up above most, 6 days old and is in the top 15 on Allcrypt's voting system plus on more exchanges than I think anyone anticipated.
The chance of a pump and dump decrease the longer this coin is in circulation. Big holders are circulating their millions into new hands. Eventually the big holders right now will have sold off at certain intervals to make a profit, while investors will buy in as the price goes up. The investors will then become big holders themselves, but not quite as big as the first (think hundreds of thousands rather than millions). More investors come in, some sell, some hold, plenty continue to buy, and the miners will continue to mine. Most importantly, the supply evens out among holders. You won't see people holding tens of millions at a time, but rather hundreds, or thousands if you're lucky, so the chances of a huge pump and dump lower dramatically.
I love the deflationary trend of this coin. The coins will get circulated very fast as more businesses accept payment in topcoin and more people trade it for goods and services. TopCoin has the potential to be huge, like Bitcoin huge. The only question is how much effort every topcoin holder is willing to give in order to make the coin a massive success. All it takes is an involved community that cares about the life of the coin and some word-of-mouth advertising. I think we can do it.
The more the word gets out about TopCoin, the better our chances. We just have to keep spreading it around. Dev already said that even after it hits 1coin/block it will be that way for 500 years lol. So there is definitely a good reason to keep mining (those 1blocks will be solved quickly IMO). Reddit is probably the best place to start, look how Dogecoin picked up? IMO it was originally supposed to just make fun of Bitcoin and turned around to have more of a value than anticipated. Hell, weren't they helping an Olympic team get sponsored? Who in the hell saw that coming?
The fact that TopCoin already exists on so many exchanges (including the more popular ones) in such a short time really puts a positive spin on the potential for TopCoin.
A friend turned me on to it but I only started mining 3 days after release (kicking myself for my own procrastination and loss of all those potential coins! ). In turn I have 2 friends that started mining yesterday and another that started mining today, all three whom had never even thought about mining ANYTHING until now. Also had to show them how to set up their rigs.
I was also able to use the positive aspects of TopCoin to convince the Mrs to allow me to build an additional rig to mine with