Debunking the "anyone can make a crypto" argument against Bitcoin

djpitagora

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Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

I have decided to make another post in order to debunk one of the common
arguments against Bitcoin.

If you are interested in another thread where I tried to do something similar, take
a look at my recent thread:
Debunking the waste of energy argument against Bitcoin

Today I´d like to debunk the argument that "anyone can make their own crypto" or its variations
like "anyone can print as many as they want".

Here are a few reasons why Bitcoin can´t be copied easily:
1. Even the well-funded fork attempts of Bitcoin Cash and SegWit2x either didn´t materialize at all
or were a complete failure... Bitcoin Cash is processing less transactions than Dogecoin every 24 hours
2. While it may be easy to copy the code of Bitcoin due to it being Open Source it is incredibly difficult
to actually get people to use your cryptocurrency... just take a look at the dozens of "ghost blockchains" of altcoins that see no real
usage
3. A product like Coca Cola that is widely popular today faced competition by more than 7000 knock-offs and still is
the most popular choice among the general public today (I concede that Coca Cola and Bitcoin are not directly comparable)
4. It is incredibly hard to launch a successful cryptocurrency in an ethical manner without a pre-mine or similar antics given
the huge competition by well-funded projects that invest more time and money into marketing than into development
5. Bitcoin has the best developers and due to the importance of security this makes it essentially impossible for other
coins to dethrone Bitcoin... many of the Bitcoin Core developers are financially independent (due to Bitcoin!*) and are working on Bitcoin
for ideological reasons, which are a far better motivation than extrinsical motivation in the form of money
6. Bitcoin has no centralized point of failure while most other projects would suffer tremendously in the case of the
death of a key person of the respective project (e.g. if Vitalik would die in a car crash tomorrow the Ethereum project
would suffer). This is even worse for the huge amount of projects with a single lead developer.
...

I´m curious to hear what you think about my arguments and of course it would be great
if you could add additional arguments.

* I remember reading a quote by one of the Bitcoin Core developers where he stated
something along the lines of "Bitcoin has taken care of me, now I´m taking care of it".
How can you seriously expect to beat someone with an attitude like this?

I'm going to debunk a few of your points

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

1. Even the well-funded fork attempts of Bitcoin Cash and SegWit2x either didn´t materialize at all
or were a complete failure... Bitcoin Cash is processing less transactions than Dogecoin every 24 hours

That's because it brings nothing new on the table. It's just a copy. Of course it failed. Point is there are about 1000 coins out there, and most of them are easy copies. Those will fail. Then there are many that are not copies and improved things a lot, but will still fail because people don't understand the improvements. In the end only a couple will survive, and at least a some will beat bitcoin. There are so many great things out there I'd like to think the world is smarter then that.

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

2. While it may be easy to copy the code of Bitcoin due to it being Open Source it is incredibly difficult
to actually get people to use your cryptocurrency... just take a look at the dozens of "ghost blockchains" of altcoins that see no real
usage

You are right here. People are incredibly sheepish and rarely see the real value in all the hype

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

3. A product like Coca Cola that is widely popular today faced competition by more than 7000 knock-offs and still is
the most popular choice among the general public today (I concede that Coca Cola and Bitcoin are not directly comparable)

Was any of the knockoffs better then Coca Cola? No. Most focused on getting it cheaper. Then this is a failed comparison.

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

4. It is incredibly hard to launch a successful cryptocurrency in an ethical manner without a pre-mine or similar antics given
the huge competition by well-funded projects that invest more time and money into marketing than into development

Yet there are some but were launched very ethicly. Of course most people don't because it's all about money, but lets not forget BTC pre-mine was/is huge. Just because it's sitting there it doesn't mean the keys are lost...

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

5. Bitcoin has the best developers and due to the importance of security this makes it essentially impossible for other
coins to dethrone Bitcoin... many of the Bitcoin Core developers are financially independent (due to Bitcoin!*) and are working on Bitcoin
for ideological reasons, which are a far better motivation than extrinsical motivation in the form of money

you clearly don't understand opensource. You don't need to be financialy independant to code opensource software, just passionate about something. There are millions of open source projects around the world, made by people with jobs as well. I too have a job and in my free time contribute to various projects. I don't expect any financial gain from them.

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

6. Bitcoin has no centralized point of failure while most other projects would suffer tremendously in the case of the
death of a key person of the respective project (e.g. if Vitalik would die in a car crash tomorrow the Ethereum project
would suffer). This is even worse for the huge amount of projects with a single lead developer.

In terms of development no, but then again it's the same case with other large projects like Monero.
In the end out of 1000 projects, not all have to "die" so that BTC looses it's throne. Just a few need to succeed and not get hit by a car.

Also speaking of single point of failures, more then 50% of worlds processing power is in china and controlled by 4 companies. If these 4 people decided BTC is over, or China's president did, .... now that's a huge point of failure.

Samarkand

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Quote from: buwaytress on May 18, 2018, 02:36:25 AM

...
Yeah, I got that... heh. I sometimes wonder if all that testnet reputation got a bit too condescending for Charlie Lee, leading him to eventually sell off all his coins.
...

Charlie Lee sold pretty much at the top near the Litecoin ATH. This makes you wonder, whether
he knew something that the average investor didn´t know. It just looks pretty suspicious if you manage
to sell an asset that you own for several years right at the peak.

Besides, his former involvement at Coinbase and the subsequent listing of Litecoin
at Coinbase should be regarded somewhat sceptically. Would LTC have ever been added
to Coinbase if Charlie Lee didn´t work there? There is a decent possibility that he and
several other insiders that knew in advance that LTC was going to be listed at Coinbase made
a killing due to this insider information.

buwaytress

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Quote from: jseverson on May 17, 2018, 09:49:39 PM

Quote from: buwaytress on May 17, 2018, 05:50:44 AM

If everyone were held to what they once said, we'd get nowhere. Litecoin has contributed a lot to Bitcoin as well, and in no small part due to the good relationships between the devs. Bitcoin may never have needed all that Lightning Network and atomic swap testing on Litecoin but I'm sure every success Litecoin's ever had was only good learning steps for Bitcoin.

Anyone can make a crypto... that's actually part of the beauty of Bitcoin. You're free to do as you wish with the code. Free to improve on it, change it, attempt to create your own value on it. Hundreds have tried, hundreds will continue to try. Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

Oh, I wasn't saying Litecoin is bad. I like it, actually. I was simply making fun of its redundancy, having basically the same roadmap as Bitcoin, and its meme reputation as a testnet. It's a great alternative and I would hold it before ETH or any other altcoin, but I also believe that people won't need alternatives that do pretty much the exact same things Bitcoin does at some point in the future. People are completely free to create coins, fork, and use open source code, and are likewise free to call anything they want shit. I don't think Litecoin is shit, but it very well could be once Bitcoin matures.

Yeah, I got that... heh. I sometimes wonder if all that testnet reputation got a bit too condescending for Charlie Lee, leading him to eventually sell off all his coins.

You're definitely right though about almost all altcoins doing pretty much the same thing Bitcoin already does or will do - just dressed up in fancier sounding tech that hasn't and will never get the opportunities to withstand the tests of demand and network stress.

I'm Bitcoin first and I'm not even sure I'm anything else second, but I rather think that when Bitcoin truly matures, it can only strengthen alts by showing them the way - much like how almost any national currency is a copy of the original, but still find their own place. So maybe you're right... if today's forex world sees anything outside the USD/EUR/GBP/CHF as shit currencies... I suppose one day Bitcoiners would also see alts with the same disdain, whether or not they attain significant use.

jseverson

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Quote from: buwaytress on May 17, 2018, 05:50:44 AM

If everyone were held to what they once said, we'd get nowhere. Litecoin has contributed a lot to Bitcoin as well, and in no small part due to the good relationships between the devs. Bitcoin may never have needed all that Lightning Network and atomic swap testing on Litecoin but I'm sure every success Litecoin's ever had was only good learning steps for Bitcoin.

Anyone can make a crypto... that's actually part of the beauty of Bitcoin. You're free to do as you wish with the code. Free to improve on it, change it, attempt to create your own value on it. Hundreds have tried, hundreds will continue to try. Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

Oh, I wasn't saying Litecoin is bad. I like it, actually. I was simply making fun of its redundancy, having basically the same roadmap as Bitcoin, and its meme reputation as a testnet. It's a great alternative and I would hold it before ETH or any other altcoin, but I also believe that people won't need alternatives that do pretty much the exact same things Bitcoin does at some point in the future. People are completely free to create coins, fork, and use open source code, and are likewise free to call anything they want shit. I don't think Litecoin is shit, but it very well could be once Bitcoin matures.

BrewMaster

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There is trouble abrewing

the problem is at some point in the history the developers gave up the purpose of creating a working currency and started focusing on creating something they could make money from. otherwise i strongly believe that bitcoin can be "dethroned" as people love to say these days but this won't happen for years and it will not happen by any of the already existing altcoins.

we have two kinds of coins. the copy coins and the new coins.
copy coins are forks, or better said copy pasted code. it may be forks like bitcoin cash which also use the blockchain or it can be forks like litecoin that use the code only. these are jokes which we trade and have fun with their pumps.
the new coins are those that had a new and interesting idea. even Ethereum can be categorized as one but the problem is that most of them stopped at that and couldn't succeed. for example they didn't implement that "idea" properly and introduced lots of bugs and problems which makes them useless.

xIIImaL

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Quote from: timerland on May 17, 2018, 03:08:04 AM

Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency, or even forks of bitcoin. That is common knowledge. However, you can't just keep making copies of "bitcoin", and value is assigned automatically to these coins.

That just doesn't happen.Iit's like someone trying to print their own fiat currency, but since the currency doesn't have anything backing it, it is intrinsically worthless and the markets will simply not recognize it as a form of payment. It's the same with crypto.

This argument against bitcoin is honestly purely ridiculous, and anyone claiming that bitcoin's currency supply can be manipulated this way is just spewing garbage.

Forking has been taken place every time when the time BCH has been splitted from the BTC and after that. I do not think all new altcoins will go bigger in the market for sure. There are 1000 and more coins has been added to the marketplace so far.
Since having the big competition for these coins. All has been listed with the perfect rank.

I see some member and below rank guys only arguing about bitcoin is bad. I see they are not having the knowledge about the uses of bitcoin and fiat cash cracks

BillCoin

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Fully agreed.
Anyone can make a cryptocurrency, that's right, I can even take the bitcoin code, change a parameter and just start my own chain, and I end up running a new network that has a new coin that I created.
The real challenge here is to get people to trust your network and buy your coin/use it.
If you don't get enough miners your network will be weak and the fact that you created it doesn't change a lot.

Samarkand

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Quote from: buwaytress on May 17, 2018, 05:50:44 AM

... Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

Of course everyone is free to start their own cryptocurrency (and even allowed to use code from
open source projects like Bitcoin Wink

).

However, you also have to see the downside of the emergence of +1000 different altcoins. Newcomers
are easily led astray by the huge amount of altcoins and the buzzwords that the people behind
these projects use to shill their respective coins. Some newcomers to the cryptocurrency scene may
immediately recognize the unique characteristics of Bitcoin, but many others will jump into
coins that look cheap or are at least well advertised.

How many new Coinbase users did buy into coins like Litecoin (I agree with
the previous post where someone called it a "testnet for Bitcoin) or ETH due to a
lack of knowledge?

Many newcomers gravitate to these projects and become disheartened after losing
their money in various scams, shitcoins or even simply by trading random altcoins and losing
slowly to fees (if they are not victim to market manipulation that is ubiquitous in small cap altcoins).

If you would have entered the cryptocurrency scene in 2012 you would basically be buying BTC and be finished with
your investment and ideally you would also start to expand your knowledge about Bitcoin.
If you enter the cryptocurrency scene in 2017 or 2018 you are bombarded by sleazy marketing
of various altcoins, outright scams, ICOs and various other stuff that is designed to separate you from
your money (or worse, from your Bitcoins!).

I´m not arguing that it is bad to launch a new cryptocurrency, I´m arguing that after thousands of new
projects Bitcoin is still the number #1 and will always be the number #1 for the reasons that I outlined above
(and for the reasons that Torque has added).

buwaytress

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Quote from: jseverson on May 16, 2018, 09:22:45 AM

Quote from: Torque on May 16, 2018, 06:36:18 AM

Quote from: Awesomus Maximus on May 16, 2018, 06:25:27 AM

Charlie Lee once said that all his LTC team had to do is wait and implement the good solutions from the Bitcoin developer team.

That statement alone should prove how completely worthless Litecoin is.

That's way too harsh. I'll have you know that some people actually find value in Litecoin, being a Bitcoin testnet and all. To each his own. _{_{_/s}}

If everyone were held to what they once said, we'd get nowhere. Litecoin has contributed a lot to Bitcoin as well, and in no small part due to the good relationships between the devs. Bitcoin may never have needed all that Lightning Network and atomic swap testing on Litecoin but I'm sure every success Litecoin's ever had was only good learning steps for Bitcoin.

Anyone can make a crypto... that's actually part of the beauty of Bitcoin. You're free to do as you wish with the code. Free to improve on it, change it, attempt to create your own value on it. Hundreds have tried, hundreds will continue to try. Whether they are successful or not doesn't matter. What matters is that they CAN try. How did something so amazing become something so negative?

timerland

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Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency, or even forks of bitcoin. That is common knowledge. However, you can't just keep making copies of "bitcoin", and value is assigned automatically to these coins.

That just doesn't happen.Iit's like someone trying to print their own fiat currency, but since the currency doesn't have anything backing it, it is intrinsically worthless and the markets will simply not recognize it as a form of payment. It's the same with crypto.

This argument against bitcoin is honestly purely ridiculous, and anyone claiming that bitcoin's currency supply can be manipulated this way is just spewing garbage.

Awesomus Maximus

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Quote from: jseverson on May 16, 2018, 09:22:45 AM

Quote from: Torque on May 16, 2018, 06:36:18 AM

Quote from: Awesomus Maximus on May 16, 2018, 06:25:27 AM

Charlie Lee once said that all his LTC team had to do is wait and implement the good solutions from the Bitcoin developer team.

That statement alone should prove how completely worthless Litecoin is.

That's way too harsh. I'll have you know that some people actually find value in Litecoin, being a Bitcoin testnet and all. To each his own. _{_{_/s}}

Yes it may be too harsh. I believe Litecoin has its place and a solid future. However, if Litecoin is in this position with regard to development, what do you think how thin and fragile all the other altcoins must be?

jseverson

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Quote from: Torque on May 16, 2018, 06:36:18 AM

Quote from: Awesomus Maximus on May 16, 2018, 06:25:27 AM

Charlie Lee once said that all his LTC team had to do is wait and implement the good solutions from the Bitcoin developer team.

That statement alone should prove how completely worthless Litecoin is.

That's way too harsh. I'll have you know that some people actually find value in Litecoin, being a Bitcoin testnet and all. To each his own. _{_{_/s}}

Carlton Banks

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Quote from: alyssa85 on February 18, 2018, 06:40:21 PM

Bitcoincash might not be processing many transactions - but Ethereum certainly is.

In the last 24 hours, transactions were as follows:

Bitcoin: 162,213

Ethereum: 763,340

Ripple: 908,938

Litecoin: 75,274

Scaling is happening - but it's happening outside bitcoin.

How many Lightning transactions happened in the same 24 hours?

Scaling already happened, and all those coins above are completely irrelevant now. Bitcoin now needs privacy, scaling is over

Quote from: alyssa85 on February 18, 2018, 06:40:21 PM

And Ethereum's market cap is catching up to Bitcoin too. If bitcoin doesn't solve it's merchant adoption problem, the flippening will happen.

Ethereum and Ripple aren't decentralised, your comparison is meaningless

Torque

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Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

I´m curious to hear what you think about my arguments and of course it would be great
if you could add additional arguments.

I would add two more arguments:

7. Bitcoin had "immaculate conception." Anything that followed did not.

8. Once a crypto (Bitcoin) had been created that has the greatest security, meets all the the fundamental needs/attributes that a good crypto should have, and achieves popularity and utility, and can be upgraded, then what is the point of creating anything else? Answer: there isn't one.

Once Gold is created and becomes popular, what's the point of Fool's Gold? None.

Quote from: Awesomus Maximus on May 16, 2018, 06:25:27 AM

Charlie Lee once said that all his LTC team had to do is wait and implement the good solutions from the Bitcoin developer team.

That statement alone should prove how completely worthless Litecoin is.

Awesomus Maximus

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Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

2. While it may be easy to copy the code of Bitcoin due to it being Open Source it is incredibly difficult
to actually get people to use your cryptocurrency... just take a look at the dozens of "ghost blockchains" of altcoins that see no real usage

Charlie Lee once said that all his LTC team had to do is wait and implement the good solutions from the Bitcoin developer team. There's so much money at stake, that you really really have to have a good team. One small bug, and billions are potentially lost. And I don't think the other cryptocurrencies have been tested the way bitcoin had and continues to be. So, yes everyone has the right to create another crypto, but whether you should put your money in it, that's is another story.

1Referee

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Quote from: Samarkand on May 06, 2018, 05:04:41 AM

On the other hand Bitcoin is not threatened by this, because the project isn´t
run by a company (like Ripple labs) and the issuance didn´t happen in a
way that could be classified as a security offering (like the ETH public sale).

I wonder what consequences a potential security classification will have on Ethereum if it ever happens, and then mainly, how will it impact Bitcoin.

Ethereum is growing larger, which people consider to be a threat to Bitcoin (it really isn't), but they fail to understand that in order to trade Ethereum on non fiat exchanges as Binance, people need Bitcoin, and in the same way that applies to all other similar tokens. Bitcoin is basically the center of everything, and when exchanges won't bother to apply for the required licenses in order to have securities listed on their platform, suddenly a very large number of Bitcoin is back into circulation, and in some cases people will have less incentive to buy Bitcoin in order to trade these tokens, which isn't something to look forward to.

In other words, a growing altcoin/token market is a blessing for Bitcoin.

Samarkand

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I´ll add another reason:

7. Bitcoin is not threatened by the flood of lawsuits that its competitors like Ripple (already happening) and
Ethereum (probably going to happen) are exposed to.

A picture from one of the recent complaints against Ripple that contains not
only one, but several allegations:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcXSzekXkAICaed.jpg

Both Ripple and Ethereum are basically securities by the way they have been issued
initially. According to a high-ranking SEC official the emergence of these projects
is basically the most blatant violation of the relevant laws in the last 100 years.

On the other hand Bitcoin is not threatened by this, because the project isn´t
run by a company (like Ripple labs) and the issuance didn´t happen in a
way that could be classified as a security offering (like the ETH public sale).

magneto

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People need to start realising that the value of cryptos are backed by the community.

In a sense, bitcoin is just like gold, digitised. Because it is decentralized, people see that it is a store of value since no one single person can manipulate its supply, just like gold. And they trust bitcoin because it's the first and most well known crypto out there.

That's where the value of gold and crypto alike comes from - trust from the community.

I find it absurd that people say BTC's intrinsic value is $20, and that anyone can make more and more cryptos... No it doesn't work like that. You need a community behind your coin for the value to go up.

Samarkand

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Quote from: kolesozw on February 18, 2018, 08:51:20 AM

...
Bitcoin Cash is the 4th on total market cap with 44B! I don't see how this isn't "didn´t materialize at all". SegWit2x was attempt for something different. BCH is pure
fork.

...

"Didn´t materialize at all" was referring to the cancellation of the Segwit2x fork.

The fact that the Bitcoin Cash market cap is so high is not really relevant if no one uses a coin.
We all know that market cap is a bad metric for cryptocurrencies and therefore I would
rather look at actual usage of a network. As I pointed out in the opening post even
a project like Dogecoin does process more transactions than Bitcoin Cash, which should
tell you everything you need to know about the adoption of BCH.

Quote from: sjefdeklerk on February 18, 2018, 11:01:57 PM

...Well honestly I think your 'debunk' threads are really among the dumbest here on this forum. And that means something.

Why do you think they are among the dumbest threads? I have no problem if you have a different viewpoint from me,
but I fail to see any arguments in your post.

sjefdeklerk

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SODL

Quote from: Samarkand on February 18, 2018, 06:40:28 AM

I´m curious to hear what you think

Well honestly I think your 'debunk' threads are really among the dumbest here on this forum. And that means something.

Topic: Debunking the "anyone can make a crypto" argument against Bitcoin (Read 353 times)