Topic: Are altcoins worth/security dependent on Bitcoin? (Read 971 times)

If Bitcoin foundered, it would affect the altcoin world like the '08 crisis affected the bank stocks. Only more so.

Thinking long term, the wreckage would present a spectacular buying opportunity provided that you're skeptical, take your time and are very choosy. It'd be like buying stocks in late 1932 to early 1933, a time when trading was so thin the traders sometime played ball games on the trading floor because there was nothing to do.

But it would take a long wait - just like buying stocks in the 1930s entailed a long wait. Outside of this here echo chamber, the Mt. Gox scandal put a huge crimp in the evangelization for every altcoin - including any altcoin that was never touched by a scandal. That's warning enough about the general debacle that would ensue if Bitcoin were to be wrecked.

It's also a tip. At a minimum, choosiness would involve eschewing any crypto unless it has a "clean" history that includes successful stress testing in the wild.

Pro Tip: It would also be a time to be fatalistic about the prospects of even the best altcoin. Black-swan superbear markets require the attitude of a survivor, not a pumper. The huge cloud over all cryptocurrencies will take a long time to dissipate.

But that said, we have options that stock investors don't - such as building the ecosystem of our favourite crypto(s).

agree! like if Dollar exist as the world reserve currency and die, there are other fiat currency to come out to replace the status of dollar.

Altcoins can be traded for stuff in person at a meet up, for example.  Also, there are exchanges that facilitate fiat to altcoin trades.  And altcoins can always be exchanged for other altcoins.  Bitcoin isn't needed for any of these markets.  Worthless independent of bitcoin?  Maybe.  I'm sure the market would have something to say about it.

The answer to your question (in my view) is yes/ no.

It would be churlish to suggest that the success of all cryptocurrencies isn't predicated (at present) on Bitcoin being a success. This is the reality of today.

However the reality of today isn't always the reality of tomorrow. If a coin (call it shitHOTcoin) grew to say 25% of the market cap and daily volume of Bitcoin, and stayed there for a substantial period of time, it could easily break the dependency. Particularly if new fiat money was driving the uptake of shitHOTcoin. The main reason for the dependency is that most cryptos are primarily the plaything of large BTC holders, looking to get more BTC and ultimately more fiat. This, as with all things, can easily change - particularly if a coin has real world utility and value.

I also believe that if BTC were to go mainstream, the dependency will break. Competition for BTC will become more fierce. The drive for real alternatives (that either compete with or supplement BTC) will become more pronounced. And offering services and measurements that are not BTC-centric will become the norm.

Ultimately,if BTC died tomorrow, it wouldn't be the end of cryptocurrency. However the space will be even more marginalised and have a fraction of the value than it has today.

Exactly.

One of the reasons I always chuckle when people believe that DASH/XMR/NEM or whatever coin have a legit chance of being the next bitcoin is because every altcoin is mostly traded to- and from FIAT through bitcoin. As long as that is the case it's not possible to replace bitcoin.

If bitcoin were to rapidly flop for some reason the crypto scene would lose tremendous amount of trust from everyone from casual users to crypto enthusiasts depending on the reason why bitcoin died.
I strongly believe that none of the currently existing altcoins could take its place (in terms of liquidity) because none of the top altcoins are that much better than bitcoin.

So yeah, altcoins I think are absolutely dependent on btc.

No more than Microsoft was to Netscape was to Mosaic.

If bitcoin dies or encounters some issues, altcoins will suffer as well severely! They are based on the same concept (digital currency, BlockChain, peer to peer nodes). It means all of the digital concept totally fail! Their price will crash at the same time! Beyond that, most of altcoins are priced in bitcoin! What is the point of pumping the altcoins' price in bitcoin?

On the contrary, if BTC plummeted totally, then altcoins would be worth
zillions of satoshis. At which point their values would be better expressed
in terms of some other currency.

yeah pretty much imho

me I'm still mining my last titan(s) to doorstop status and am doing LTC and holding (prob dumb but what I'm doing) anything above 0.006 LTC to BTC is fine with me
from my costs etc (currently it is 0.00856 LTC to BTC)

IF BTC was to pop and LTC did its usual yoshi follow along at above the 0.006 LTC to BTC rate to Bitcoin I can probably deal with that (esp with LTC halving coming up)

my real concern is the lack of ANY real scrypt miners POW version are in the works or being made at this time (due to low scrypt alt pow coin prices imho)

so eventually ....either price will have to go up for LTC and ALTS or all the data  hall mining will go to BTC (esp at these BTC prices) and scrypt pow will go away

to POS or something...already you lose $$$ big time on a 50mh 900w say gaw miner at these prices for LTC and other alt coins etc... so as diff goes up and elec goes up
and price stays low/flat more stuff will roll off the other end and be shut off due to elec costs

on the other hand a pop in LTC price due to halving to say 4 bucks a lot of stuff would get turned back on ..again imho

but yeah the linkage and the old LTC silver to gold analogy has some truth to it ....I'd be a lot more secure with LTC and by indirect association the other scrypt pow alts if LTC went back to around 0.01 LTC to BTC I could live with that connection quite well mining and with the LTC I have already

anyway how I see it (athough at one time I drank the BFL kool aid so keep that in mind on the above)

Since the worth of altcoins are expressed in satoshi, does this mean that if Bitcoins become worthless altcoins become worthless as well? Does it also mean that the market cap of altcoins together can never exceed the market cap of Bitcoin since if that would be the case the altcoins would be covered by thin air? Does it also mean that if a 51 percent attack destroys the Bitcoin network that all altcoins will become worthless since then Bitcoin would be worthless? Does this mean that if an altcoin for example says it's more secure against a 51 percent attack that in the end it doesn't matter since its security is still dependent on the security of Bitcoin?