Bitcoin's gotta succeed for anything else on that list to succeed.
can you explain why?
If it can be shown that a solid cryptocurrency with 98% (nearly total) marketshare such as bitcoin, with it's corresponding network effect, can fail.. the idea that artificially scarce code can reliably store value will have been permanently shattered. So when the new king is crowned with 60% marketshare, people are not going to buy it, literally and figuratively.
i see your point but i think you paint it a bit too black. After all bitcoin was no 'store of value' - if it would have been that, we would now not be in this miserable situation. You talk about 'artificial scarcity' but bitcoin was not and for a long time will not be 'scarce' - that's the main problem.
Maybe not one but 3 or 4 kings are crowned? People have a choice and the best wins. Like a horse race. People will understand that and crypto will be treated for what it is: a risky investement in a new tech. One or two decades down the road things may be more manifested. I don't see a problem with abandoning bitcoin at all. Not abandoning it would cause a fail of the whole industry. Bitcoin can still hold a decent marketcap without being the primary coin. It's the free market and evolution - there's nothing wrong with that and it's authentic. Nothing will be shattered. Forcing a coin onto people that is nonsense from an economic and also from a darwinistic standpoint is BS. If bitcoin after this past years performance would remain number 1 all this industry would have lost credibility.
We have learned a few lessons from it so it was good.
Time to move on ...
protip:
Next time use a coin that doesn't dump all year long so the point with the 'artificial scarce code' can be made once again.
It's an evolving, evolutionary process. Believing something else is madness.
Nothing is set in stone.
"Panta rhei" my friend. You would be surprised to hear all these 'permabulls' were selling all the time while telling you how bitcoin will be the big thing. Only trust your own judgement - never let yourself be influenced by what others say because they sell you all kinds of bullshit. Bitcoin-pumpers are no exception.
I think we basically agree. I don't think bitcoin can fail as in go to zero for no good reason and be replaced by another big (billion dollar) cryptocurrency and so on in a cycle of total failure after succession after total failure. I think succession in cryptocurrency has to mirror the example of empires in world hisgtory.
The Roman empire can wane, and the Holy Roman Empire can replace it but Italian powers are still a thing. Still a force to be reckoned with.
The British empire can wane and America rises but the United Kingdom is still a thing. It's still a force.
Every dynasty in China claims to hold the "heavenly mandate." The divine right to rule. Legitimacy.
As you said, you can have bitcoin wane and lose marketshare to some novel, useful technologies, but it'll still be considered a success if it survives and holds a decent marketcap.
But if bitcoin fails completely, then I believe that the legitimacy of cryptocurrency is irredeemably compromised. And that's what I mean. If bitcoin's not a success, nothing will be a success. Every novel blockchain-based cryptocurrency is flowing forth from the tradition of bitcoin.
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