Topic: The Mainstream bitcoin community refuses to even acknowledge altcoins (Read 596 times)

Alt coins have value and are a good thing.

• They enable the community to test out features that could eventually be added to Bitcoin.
• They enable blockchain abstraction, or separation of unique coin functionality from unrelated networks.

The second one is debatable, but in my opinion is an advantage, so long as prominent alt networks remain secure.

I agree with you 100% which is why I am a little pissed off, because if we continually work against each other I think the entire cryptocoin industry will be at war with the wrong people. Instead of fighting for mainstream implementation we will be fighting each other.

Was referring to 'sediment'.


Somewhat agree with you actually.

While Bitcoins supply itself can not be inflated, the number of forks can. Each new fork eats into the market cap of btc. People just learning about Bitcoin wrestles with the notion of Bitcoin not having intrinsic value, ie. "Cant they just create new kinds of Bitcoin". Well they are right and yet their fears is misguided because what matter is not the fork itself, but the dedication of the people working behind and supporting the fork. What gives a coin value is the work put into it - therefor you can not simply just fork something and expect it to catch on for the long run. Newcomers might not realize this though. I think proponents of Bitcoin is aware of these issues. I think they think that "if bitcoin can be replaced by an alt, it proves to the public that cryptocoins can not be trusted as a store of value over longer periods of time". Also they probably have a stash of btc, but that I think is secondary. Well thats my thoughts.

I would argue that Bitcoin have at least three flaws:
no built in escrow (solved by zerocoin hopefully)
Waste energy (primecoin seem to show that this must not be so)
centralization (attempt to solve by litecoins/scrypt but far from solved)

Actually I think the third one is unsolveable and also the worst flaw of them all. Strangely this issue is however being solved by the creation of altcoins! Think of it: perhaps asic will dominate Bitcoins, well the total ecosystem will still be decntralized because they can not mine litecoins. But what about fpgaburner or asics for litecoin? Well, its always possible to fork and make something new at little cost that would require much cost in terms of creating new hardware. At least until asic manufacturing has come way down.

So, in my oppinion altcoins is not a problem, its the solution to a problem. What is needed is a multicoin wallet and multicoin payment infrastructure that make it possible for a gadget to be bought by combining several different coins. As a wallet owner you should be able to configure this wallet to your own liking (excluding aliencoin and including bitcoin and what not). Arbitrage botz will make sure that price levels outand switched mining that processing power is dispersed over thw toral ecosystem of coins. This, in my opinion, solves much of the centralization issues.

Sorry for rant also typing on cellphone so sorry for typos.

You tell me, I hear that the first time, but then it wouldn't surprise me.
From my experience the more hostility from Bitcoin Hardliners there is the higher it takes off. We've seen that with LTC, now XRP, and you can bet the newest additions will be just as hated.
I would even go as far as to be bullish on a currency because it is attacked by mainline idiots.

Arguing against LTC is kind of pointless at this point anyway since it has enough hashing power and it's own black-market, so whoever wants can try to boycott and badmouth it all they want it will not go away even if they were successful with it.

You might want to reread ElectricMucus's response. (unless it was their mistake, in which case, carry on)

*Mucus's, is that correct? Sounds like an awful situation.

Really?
You know my way of dealing with this is getting some laughs out of the situation, oh and some tasty profit.

It does, but I still see people way too often refusing to use services if they accept litecoin along with bitcoin.

Sediment improved actually in the last few months if that means anything to you.

This is getting a little ridiculous how much the mainstream bitcoin users hate altcoins. People on the forums ask "Is Gpu mining dead, I have blah blah blah can i mine anything?" and people respond that there is no money to be made at all with gpus. The second someone responds litecoin or another currency, they are attacked. I was also watching one of the bitcoin 2013 developer round tables and at one point gavin mentions litecoin and Mike Hearn looks over and gives him the stink eye and Gavin stops mid sentence. They talk about the free market and the ability for people to chose their own coin, but act as if bitcoin is the only reasonable solution. Litecoin might not have much of a difference, but with a market cap of around 600k btc it is petty at this point to ignore altcoins completely. Sorry if this was a little bit of a rant. What do you guys think?