Is bitcoin network unique in nature - or could there be many in parallel?

wumpus

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No Maps for These Territories

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

A fundamental flaw in bitcoin will extremely likely affect the altcoins as well. Most of them are forked from the same code base, and are only different in a few points.

Also true in a non-technical sense: if it turns out that bitcoin has a big problem and thus suffers a blow big enough to derail it, people will be talking of cryptocurrencies (at least the block-chain based ones) as a failure for a long time to come. Maybe the idea will be picked up again in 50-100 year, but none of the current altcoins will 'take over' bitcoins place.

acoindr

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Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:15:52 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on March 20, 2013, 04:09:05 PM

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax. Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

WTF man? BetaMax was the bomb! Grin

Seriously, as I said to other skeptics in the thread of my post then:

Quote from: acoindr on October 03, 2012, 05:24:22 PM

Quote from: kiba on October 03, 2012, 05:20:03 PM

I am underwhelmed and unconvinced.

That's fine. You're part of the market, and free to have an opinion. But the market is larger than you (and me), and if it thinks I'm right then that's how things will play out.

LTC was about $0.04 - $0.05 then. Maybe I'll remember to come back and quote this thread when LTC is over $1.

Yeah, I remembered.

MoonShadow

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Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 05:40:24 PM

Presently it looks like there will be three global blockchains: Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Novacoin. Absent any marked improvement over the offerings of those 3 coins nothing else will gain that level of acceptance. So we will see a "lock in" effect to market share, but this will include more than Bitcoin.

I've never even heard of Novacoin, and a search for that term yielded only this very post. What is it?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it. A PoW and PoS hybrid that uses Scrypt in the PoW part, presumedly to made GPU/ASIC mining impossible. I've seen no method of PoS that I personally couldn't really monkey with, so I'm biased against any such thing from the start. I don't think it has legs.

gollum

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In Hashrate We Trust!

I think there can only be two real cryptocurrencies, just like Coke and Pepsi.
Bitcoin is no 1, Litecoin is no 2. I guess Bitcoin will have 90% of the market share of total cryptocurrencies in dollarvalue, Litecoin 9%, and Shitcoin 1...N will have 1% at most.

The problem with shitcoin 1...n is that the less network hashpower they got, the less secure and attractive they will be.

Bitcoin has now gained such a critical mass of hashpower and users that It is unlikely that any other open source currency can threaten it. Litecoin might have a chance to attract some users and survive as little brother.

wingding

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Your new blockchain would have to distinguish itself somehow. By reward structure, inflation rate, hashing algo... Etc. Or else simply get eaten by the great red spot on Jupiter that is Bitcoin.

My BTC2 will distinguish itself in many good ways:

1. It will be started by much more miners in the beginning - hence more even distribution.
2. It will kick ass the early shadowy murky early adopters of todays BTC
3. I will get into BTC2 much earlier than I did in BTC, hence recover the losses when my BTC has no longer any value

Wanna join the chain?

acoindr

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Quote from: MoonShadow on March 20, 2013, 05:19:40 PM

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:15:52 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on March 20, 2013, 04:09:05 PM

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax. Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

WTF man? BetaMax was the bomb! Grin

Sure, but it wasn't first to market, VHS was. VHS won. Betamax wasn't better enough for the early adopters to switch, due to the network effect. Bitcoin has the first to market advantage, and the potential ability to annex any real improvements that an alt-chain can produce anyway. If the 2 minute interval that LTC uses really offers a market advantage, Bitcoin can steal that advantage. There are only a few things about the way the network actually works that can't be messed with, including the 21 M BTC limit.

Hmm, actually Betamax was first to market:

Quote

developed by Sony, released in Japan on May 10, 1975 ... rival videotape format VHS (introduced in Japan by JVC in October 1976 ...

But I agree with your sentiment. First to market will certainly have the advantage unless, like you say, competition has significant improvement allowing it to catch up.

This crypto-currency movement we're all a part of is interesting, though, because it deals with monetary aspects as well as technical considerations. I do believe at a certain point a crypto-currency is probably beyond challenge due to market share, but I don't believe Bitcoin is there yet.

What I see happening is Bitcoin leading the way to global acceptance of crypto-currency. Similar to gold I believe you'll be able to exchange bitcoins for goods and services around the globe. However, we're a very long way from that, so long that I believe alternate market choices to Bitcoin will also spread in adoption to eventually reach the whole globe. Presently it looks like there will be three global blockchains: Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Novacoin. Absent any marked improvement over the offerings of those 3 coins nothing else will gain that level of acceptance. So we will see a "lock in" effect to market share, but this will include more than Bitcoin.

MoonShadow

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Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:15:52 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on March 20, 2013, 04:09:05 PM

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax. Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

WTF man? BetaMax was the bomb! Grin

Sure, but it wasn't first to market, VHS was. VHS won. Betamax wasn't better enough for the early adopters to switch, due to the network effect. Bitcoin has the first to market advantage, and the potential ability to annex any real improvements that an alt-chain can produce anyway. If the 2 minute interval that LTC uses really offers a market advantage, Bitcoin can steal that advantage. There are only a few things about the way the network actually works that can't be messed with, including the 21 M BTC limit.

acoindr

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Quote from: MoonShadow on March 20, 2013, 04:09:05 PM

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax. Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

WTF man? BetaMax was the bomb! Grin

Seriously, as I said to other skeptics in the thread of my post then:

Quote from: acoindr on October 03, 2012, 05:24:22 PM

Quote from: kiba on October 03, 2012, 05:20:03 PM

I am underwhelmed and unconvinced.

That's fine. You're part of the market, and free to have an opinion. But the market is larger than you (and me), and if it thinks I'm right then that's how things will play out.

LTC was about $0.04 - $0.05 then. Maybe I'll remember to come back and quote this thread when LTC is over $1.

justusranvier

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Quote from: ?? on ??

The space colonies will probably be sufficiently isolated by lag to develop a parallel network which is on par.

Sure. When we talk about civilizations that extend beyond a single planet then the 10 minute confirmation time can be called a "fundamental flaw" that makes alternatives viable/necessary.

Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

I disagree.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

MoonShadow

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

The space colonies will probably be sufficiently isolated by lag to develop a parallel network which is on par.

Well, that's probably true. The lunies could still use Bitcoin without trouble, but Mars pretty much would have to start their own blockchain.

MoonShadow

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Quote from: acoindr on March 20, 2013, 04:08:17 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

So did BetaMax. Reality didn't care what their opinion was either.

acoindr

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Quote from: justusranvier on March 20, 2013, 03:53:18 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

I disagree.

acoindr

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Quote from: ?? on ??

The problem with an alt blockchain that is too similar to Bitcoin is that bang for the buck in risk diversity just isn't there. It's like trying to protect cheetahs by making identical copies. When a lack of genetic diversity is what is already a primary threat to them in the first place.

I don't see the correlation, but for the record what appears to make cheetahs endangered is as follows:

Quote from: ?? on ??

But there is another problem with having an alt that is too similar, which is that it is unlikely to thrive well enough to serve as a backup for that place in the ecosystem. LTC may be fine and dandy but because of the choice of inflation rate traction will be very long coming.

Traction is already here. Much of the coin's early life was spent around $.04, and even that was considered traction over the other failed alt-coins which were/are fractions of a penny, which is why I focused on it and not anything else at the time. Today LTC's exchange rate is about $0.50. People around Bitcoin in the early days may remember similar pricing patterns.

I actually think Litecoin's inflation rate makes a stronger case for it gaining market traction because there are already as many litecoins as bitcoins in circulation, more so actually due to a faster inflation rate (about 16M LTC currently).

Quote from: ?? on ??

We probably need a broad spectrum of inflation rates for diversity's sake, but I speculate that a competing alt would need an inflation rate approximately half that of Bitcoin to gain much traction in the early stages of its development.

I think we will eventually end up with such a spectrum to give the decentralized crypto currencies a tiered system as there is in the debt markets. With risk levels tailored to every need in the various arbitrage markets.

I believe inflation rate plays little role. What's more important is that there is a reasonable cap on total amount of coins.

justusranvier

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfs_Law

Absent some fundamental flaw, it's going to be very hard for any alt cryptocurrency to catch up with Bitcoin given the head start it has.

acoindr

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Quote from: ?? on ??

The answer is yes. Start here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain

However, the real struggle for your BC2 (er, whatever) won't be so much technical as it is economic.

That's true

Quote from: ?? on ??

In a financial ecosystem completely removed from Bitcoin it's growth might behave similarly. Maybe on a space station...

But in the world that most people live in Bitcoin pretty well owns its niche.

Also true, but for now it's a very small niche, which is why I said this in my Solution to the Bitcoin Foundation post:

Quote from: acoindr on October 03, 2012, 04:40:27 PM

So the solution is simply to promote at least one other cryptocurrency in the market (ideally there might be 2 for better distribution), and do it before Bitcoin gets a stronger foothold. The timing of TBF announcement is fantastic, because it leaves room in Bitcoin's life for competition to check it.

Quote from: ?? on ??

Your new blockchain would have to distinguish itself somehow. By reward structure, inflation rate, hashing algo... Etc. Or else simply get eaten by the great red spot on Jupiter that is Bitcoin.

Yes, and LTC and NVC do distinguish themselves. LTC substantially reduces block confirmation time among other things, and NVC adds proof-of-stake to proof-of-work for protection from 51% attacks. But my favorite difference for these two chains (which are gaining traction) are simply that they are not Bitcoin. That allows for two important safety measures: an outlet to express dissatisfaction with circumstances surrounding Bitcoin; and a technical and economic backup if a problem arises with Bitcoin like the unforseen chain fork we recently experienced.

tysat

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Keep it real

Quote from: wingding on March 20, 2013, 02:40:35 PM

Nobody seems to know?

The answer is yes, refer to my previous link. The alternate cryptocurrenices section shows other bitcoin-like protocols.

Gabi

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If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat

Are you trolling or what? Roll Eyes

wingding

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Nobody seems to know?

tysat

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Keep it real

Check out https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

acoindr

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https://btc-e.com/

Topic: Is bitcoin network unique in nature - or could there be many in parallel? (Read 1580 times)