Quite surprised to see Dogecoin in this list. It's actually doing a great thing to the Bitcoin community by expanding the user base of cryptocoins.
I came to believe that bitcoin proponents can be a little bit arrogant to other altcoins just like the traditional financiers are still arrogant towards bitcoin itself. There're still huge things to come, as the market is not developed yet at all.
My point is, this thread would be way better if you offered advice on how to determine whether the altcoin is likely to be scam.
dogecoin is pure internet marketing. there is nothing special or revolutionary about it, its a gimmick and a scam, therefore it belongs on the list. I love the meme, and i'll probably buy a dogecoin shirt just for the lulz, but dogecoin as a currency is a joke and is something i only play in with small amounts
DO NOT BE CONNED INTO INVESTING INTO NEW ALTCOINS
99.9% of these coins are scams designed to lure unsuspecting newbies into buying them.
Scammers use many of the following methods to lure in people and trick them into investing time/money into these coins:
- Use marketing techniques(Dogecoin)
- Premining for Giveaways and Bounties
- Fancy Logos/Websites/Lengthy Forum posts to fool you into thinking they will support it.
Thank you r3wt for sticking your neck out and telling it like it is however I have to wonder about someone's motives who encourages the removal of the altcoins section given bitcoin's current stagnant growth (vs. altcoins' popularity and increasing market caps). Is it because you feel threatened that the altcoins have taken and will continue to take new buyers' money rather than have them focus and spend it on bitcoin, thereby increasing the value of BTC, which you presumably hold?
Whatever your motives for this thread are, here are my impressions on dogecoin.
I guess you've seen the now stickied post on their subreddit called "Dogecoin Hype Video Competition" launched about 3 weeks ago that encourages shibes (their community members) to donate coins towards a prizepool? For those who haven't, a user with the label "hype shibe" (a shibe is short for shiba inu, the dog whose meme the coin is based on) encourages users to create and post hype videos on youtube in order to have a chance at winning prizes. Over the past 2 months they've gained a reputation as being community-focused with donations to charitable causes, donating doge to the Jamaican bobsled team which, combined with reaching out the key media contacts, was a clever pump and dump that saw price rise to 260 Satoshi practically overnight but soon fall. They've managed to increase their subscriber base to over 50,000 and it continues to grow.
Recent controversy includes a debate about whether developers should make it a deflationary currency like bitcoin (fixed max # of coins), vs. inflationary where more coins are introduced into the ecosystem effectively devaluing the coin over time. Something I noticed on reddit is that whenever there's a sudden drop in value due to massive selling on one or more exchanges, the pumping "to the moon!" memes and joke posts continue to get upvoted to the front page and crowd out the important ones made by what seems like less-experienced investors who are genuinely in need of advice who are likely panic selling. People are told to calm down, that 1 doge will always be worth 1 doge (ignoring the fact people paid fiat currency for those doges). That said, there are miners and early adopters who seem to be making a lot of money and I have to admit, their reddit community is a lot friendlier to newbies than bitcoin and litecoin where you're basically ignored, insulted or told to do a search before posting a question - valid advice but not the way you increase adoption.
Pfft! absolutely irrelevant points. The need to kill the alt section has nothing to do with my dislike of altcoins or "bitcoin elitism". its a siimple matter or eliminating the easy scams for these altcoin pump and dump creators. we have over 500 altcoins now, surely we don't need anymore.