Topic: I've come full circle, BTC is the only worthwhile cryptocurrency - page 4. (Read 712 times)

Will bitcoin ever solve scalability? It's now nearly two years since the fee and mempool problems of 2017 and still the mempool gets full even with much reduced transactions.

If bitcoin can't solve scalability, either cryptocurrency as a whole dies a death, or another scalable alt will take it's place.

first of all you have to keep in mind that being a currency doesn't mean it can not be a store of value. in fact "money" has been considered a store of value for ages. and bitcoin is a store of value because it is a currency.
secondly limitations that the "base layer" has doesn't change anything about the fact that bitcoin is a currency. bitcoin is not just the base layer, it is a network. right now you can use it for micro transactions and in the future as the adoption grows and second layer matures you can use that for a better result.

in the end bitcoin is still a toddler and can even be considered experimental even after a decade. we are still struggling to find that balance between keeping it decentralized while maximizing the capacity and the goal from day one that Satoshi released the paper has been to create a "currency" that is why the title of the paper says "electronic cash system" not an "electronic invest and HODL system".

Alts have their purpose, primary of which is to extract the most value out of whatever bitcoin you put into it, as, let's face it, most altcoins are paired with bitcoin on exchanges and almost nothing else.

They are the penny stocks of the crypto world.

As one post in 2016 or 2017 says, if an investor went in on the top 10 alts by marketcap with no regard to doing any other due diligence, he'd have made a lot more money than if he put the same fiat amount all in, in bitcoin. If he put it in bitcoin only, he'd make 8 to 9 times. If he "diversified" to the top 10 after bitcoin during that time, he'd make 100 to 200 times.

Let's just take ETH as an example, if you joined the ICO back in 2014, 1 BTC = 2000 ETH. ... Just remember to take your profits a few years later, but even if one did not, that ETH is still worth ... 40 times what BTC is worth today.

Like a lot of people, I looked at ETH, but did not participate. I looked at LTC, bought them at 20, sold them at 40 a week later, I think that was my best move then. I looked at EOS, ZCASH, DASH, I tried to join BAT but missed the deadline by 2 seconds or whatever it took to finish that one (crazy ico times) ... then I looked a bunch of smaller cap altcoins, and would have made some profits if we knew to cash them out in early 2018.

Of course, that's not fair and we don't have crystal balls, but we should have seen the so called crypto winter coming anyway.

Now, stablecoins are here, so it's either that or sell the alts to get BTC, eventually keep a large percentage in BTC, either to use or to just hodl.


If you're watching the regular stock market, I'd say altcoins are like the "Beyond Meats" ... you start at 70, pump up to 200, then it's now back to 70, and likely to go down, down, down.

Wow, an excellent thread with thoughtful responses in bitcoin discussion.  That's a rarity.

Op, you made some very good arguments even if I don't fully understand some of the technical aspects of what you wrote.  What I found most interesting was your explanation of why proof of stake isn't as good as pow, because I like some of the pos coins and use a few for staking.  I don't think any of them have a fatal flaw, but I concede that their design probably isn't as secure as pow coins. 

It was *supposed* to be a currency, but it isn't really being used for that so much as either a store of value or an investment, whatever the difference is there.  In fact I've always thought bitcoin was a crappy currency for a whole host of reasons, but it certainly can be used as one.  It isn't even that great a store of value since it has volatility that would make even penny stock traders nauseous. 

It still depends on how bitcoin do actually impacts an individual with regards to the investment they have in BTC as well as their trust if it is fulfilled or not. In a simple explanation, those investors and bitcoin enthusiast that can get what they want from BTC will conclude much that the current system is already enough, while those who are having a hard time gaining profits will think of the other alternatives to supple their needs.

Well, for me it depends on the risk that a person is exerting. Because learning will be absorbed much efficiently if one is having a loss with their investment. Or in short, those that are committing mistakes are much likely to learn with an exception that when they commit a mistake, they will not do it again.

I'd also add something to the list, but I'm struggling to find a way to phrase it so that it makes sense.  Or perhaps it's just an extension to the second point you made.

I feel like there's a link between the underlying principles of Bitcoin and the overwhelming momentum it has in terms of development.  Most altcoins are founded on the goal of mindless speculation and profiteering.  Some are founded to focus on a particular feature (although often a gimmick).  But few are founded on the genuine belief that the fundamental principles they are based on are important.  How many coins have faltered because they had a lone dev who simply lost interest in the project?  Probably thousands.  There's no longevity in cryptocurrencies that were founded to pursue the wrong goals.  

There's no doubt in my mind that Bitcoin has the strong dev base it does precisely because people care about "censorship resistance, immutability, security and decentralisation".  As such, a greater number of developers are more willing to commit considerable time and effort on their part to contribute to Bitcoin, rather than devs who focus on altcoins to make a quick buck.  People believe in this, so they strive to make it succeed.  Few, if any, coins can match that level of sheer passion.  Which is why Bitcoin is never going to have a shortage of contributors and the pace of development remains steady.

everybody eventually reaches the same conclusions after a while. the time it took you seems a bit too high in my opinion (4 years). usually depending on the time people join this world it could take the maximum of one cycle of altcoin pump and dumps which is usually less than a year for them to realize the truths and start seeing past the "next bitcoin" advertisements.

what you are missing about ethereum and smart contracts is that it has been useless so far and the only people who are using it are the scammers trying to raise funds out of thin air and the gamblers who are giving up their money to see if they can win some profit.

if "smart contracts" were to become useful and have some real world applications other than what is currently is being used for then it will be used on top of bitcoin as a side chain or a second layer. there currently are at least one project that is doing it called RootStock. the subject is not popular because there has not yet been any real world usage and also these side chains aren't similar pump and dump coins like ether to give profit to be able to produce similar hype.

It is infact true because I have seen all currencies showing their highs and lows but it was transient and it happened once and then we never see them again in the bull run .
This is exceptionally weird to consider that a win for currencies like this , because Bitcoins on the other hand is slow and steady these Currencies are abrupt , they suddenly change and goes down in moments and we will never see them get up again , this is why I like Bitcoins , this is why I invest 100% in Bitcoins instead of other currencies.

How long these altcoins you mentioned will last is another question if you are looking for its longevity, Ethereum was an instant hit when all the scam projects could use that to collect money and there was a time when Vitalik Buterin was bashing bitcoin about its high fees at one point and he was very vocal about Ethereum and now what happened, he had to swallow his words and hide  . In short as long as projects or companies are using these platforms they will have some valuation and the possibility to go down to zero are high and that is not the case with bitcoin and that is the biggest difference between bitcoin and the rest.

@OP I do accept most of the things you mentioned but i do not agree with the store-of-value part.

It also took me some time to realize after I earned and lost on so many altcoins. The only coin with consistent future is bitcoin. If you look at the price of coins before and after the bear run, the bitcoin has been the most successful one. Ethereum holders lose more in the bear run than Bitcoin and BNB has performed more incontestably in last 6 months than bitcoin.

That is a great write-up @100action! You might wanna put together a little more content and format it & publish it on Medium or so. It is very important to keep things into perspective. All the altcoins got hurt much more than BTC in the bear market so that's another indication why it is the only viable crypto store-of-value. Regarding the smart contract functionality I'm sure it can be implemented on BTC as well. RSK(Rootstock project) offers smart contracts secured by the Bitcoin network & I'm sure multiple functionalities can be built upon Bitcoin through extra layers.

I will address three fundamental flaws with your reply.


Bitcoin is absolutely a store of value and designed as such with a emission schedule imitating that of gold.  The base layer has throughput limitations that preclude it from being a 'currency' useful for general/micro transactions.

It's borderless, secure, censorship resistant, immutable and decentralised.  There is $30 trillion in tax havens and swiss banks, using BTC as a SOV is a no brainer.

Additionally, BTC's deflationary nature does not encourage transactions and by extension lends itself to hoarding which would be more in line with an SOV.  People in this forum hate Keynesian economics (and perhaps for good reason), but its proven deflationary assets experience lower use and becomes hoarded.


Bitcoin as a SOV is fundamentally different to two different companies delivering mass market products - we would be comparing apples with oranges.  There can only be one dominant SOV which is explaned in my original post.

By way of analogy, Silver has more market uses than Gold, why are governments/institutions hoarding gold over silver?, why has government/institution inventories of silver dropped precipitously to almost non-existant levels?

Both these articles are excellent and reinforce my point on Bitcoin as the dominant SOV and the problem with utilities:

https://medium.com/john-pfeffer/an-institutional-investors-take-on-cryptoassets-690421158904
https://medium.com/john-pfeffer/doubts-about-the-long-term-viability-of-utility-cryptoassets-db04350b1f55


I never claimed this to be the case.

My point is that there is pretty much no point in decentralising uses aside from money (MoE) and perhaps illegal market places.  All other uses are better suited to centralised databases where the market (operators and users) are happy to bear the risks cumbersome and expensive decentralised platforms seek to eliminate.

Very well made post mate, it's getting rarer and rarer for there to be people who actually have seen all/most of the crypto-currencies, and haven't fallen to the marketing jargon and come back with a clear mind.

This particular line in your post caught my eye, for a particular reason. There's been a lot of new crypto-currencies that have been made the last couple of years, and a lot of them add random, useless features like "decentralisation" or "blockchains" when they, to simply put it -don't need it.

well, i don't know how obvious it is because i can not find any altcoin at all that has followed bitcoin over the past 22 months! over that period altcoins have constantly gone down while bitcoin had its fall and then has been rising for the past 10 months.
for example bitcoin dropped ~80% and after reaching bottom in Dec 2018 it started rising a couple of months later and has gone up 250% in total
litecoin has dropped ~80% and after reaching the bottom Dec 2018 it had a little dead cat bounce where it goes back up for some time and then comes back down again to the same bottom it reached in 2018!

support everything that you've mentioned and its already proven for how many years,looking at the price and the capitalization?and the transactions per day?i am sure that only Bitcoin is the most safest and practical way of investing here in cryptocurrency market
yups thats also correct and it is exaggerated to say that all altcoins are bad because there are plenty of them that is legit and until now bringing good in this market so basically its just a matter of supremacy is the issue and not tha existence of altcoins.

The more I read and think about ethereum, the more unanswered questions I have.

The most concerning being:

1. The vast majority of DApps are better off on a centralised database (see original post).
2. The only use case that may benefit from being on a decentralised platform is an illegal marketplace.  Ethereum has proven to not be immutable with the DAO hack and I think it's no longer a candidate for this use case.
3. Eth has a 'utility' basis for value. The cost of utility (gas) act as a ceiling to price.  An increase in fees results in more competitor chains becoming attractive.
4. Exponentially increasing blockchain size and decreased ability for one to run full validating nodes.
5. PoS is not BFT

Eth may fill a niche market for smart contracts but why you would speculate in ETH over something that:

• is the perfect storm of being the first mover, most decentralised built on the back of guiding principles in security, stability, censorship resistance and immutability
• benefits immensely from the network effect of a sound store of value, where an increase in price only creates additional demand and legitimisation

In a way you are correct but, not all Altcoins are bad. The supreme cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, there is no doubt about it. But, you cannot ignore altcoins like Ethereum and exchange coins like BNB. You will need them as long as they have a platform which needs them. You cannot ignore these Altcoins .

I kinda have also come to your conclusion.

Have like 4 Altcoins I'm hodl'ing because well, hoping for a pump and not underwater yet.

The only one I do have a bit of faith out of the above 4 is Litecoin and that is simply for Mimblewimble.

But at this rate, I'll have cashed out the remaining above at HOPEFULLY the next pump and be all in for BTC.

It is obvious that where BTC goes all the altcoins follow anyway, just have to pare this down from these last 4 altcoins hoards of any note.

I did have a dozen altcoins hodl's at one time...so it is progress.

later

Brad