Quote
What makes altcoins valuable?
Support by community and developers.
Topic: What makes altcoins valuable? (Read 2105 times)
Support by community and developers.
Some altcoins have utility. They derive value the same way Bitcoin does:
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
This not true, LTC copied the scrypt hashing algorithm from tenebrix, yet tenebrix failed.
tenebrix was not a coin. It was inflationary, and it was pre-mined.
Had it not been either of these things it probably would have succeeded. It lacked utility in a sense that the time till inflation would have negated the gargantuan pre-mine would have been many years.
Fairbrix would have succeeded if it had protection against a 51% attack.
Yes exactly, why did LTC not suffer 51% attack? because there were significant amount of support at launch, it maintained a very high hash rate. This is my point, LTC succeeded because there were a lot of people behind it, mining it, building services for it, and then attracts more people mining it. LTC didn't succeed because it was the first scrypt (it's not), or it has good dev team (it does not). LTC is successful because there are many supporters for it, right from the start. No other coin has nearly as many supporters at launch as LTC did.
This guy ;this guy only :
if you want to success in this business , go talk to him, by appointment.
+ 1 ^^^
100 years from now, none gonna remember all the alt coins that wont make it till then or "you" being annoyed of all the "copy/paste", "not innovative", "premined", "scamcoins".
They will remember the 2 decades that changed the economy of the world.
100 years from now, none gonna remember all the alt coins that wont make it till then or "you" being annoyed of all the "copy/paste", "not innovative", "premined", "scamcoins".
They will remember the 2 decades that changed the economy of the world.
I think altcoins are not only valuable but necessary for the Satoshi experiment to be successful. Since the first few alt-coins appeared it dawned on me that Bitcoin will never be the lone Sathoshi crypto currency. For the same reason that Bitcoin has flourished to the chagrin of fiat currency advocates, so will alternate crypto currencies to the chagrin of some Bitcoin advocates. It’s relatively easy to start a new crypto, so there is no way to stop a constant parade of altcoins. This is actually a positive result because we won’t be putting all our Satoshi eggs into one block chain. Any attack on one crypto currency has no direct effect on the others. The Satoshi currency pool as a whole becomes much more resilient since they present numerous targets, each with different protection schemes. Then there is the issue of transaction volume. Bitcoin by itself may never be able to handle the transaction volume of a fiat currency, but a pool of crypto currencies will.
This begs the question of whether an endless supply will ultimately doom the whole Satoshi crypto currency experiment to a price spiral into the abyss. What prevents an oversupply? The answer is the same as for anything else which is traded. Market forces will control the number of variants, and eventually produce a crypto currency supply equilibrium.
The details are not easy to predict, but I suspect it will go something like this. An essentially constant stream of new crypto currencies will appear from this point forward. Some will be clones of existing ones to provide added transaction bandwidth. Others will provide new features. However, only a limited number will become widely adopted by the general public. Look at fiat currencies. There are about 200 of them, but the vast majority of commerce on the planet occurs in just a half dozen or so fiats. We will see the crypto currency majors, minors and then “the others”. The exact number of each is hard to say, but I would think somewhere in the range of 10-20 majors and another 15-30 minors may be a good guess. Then dozens of others will constantly vie for entry into the higher ranks. It may take 15-25 years to get to equilibrium, where a large percentage of world population uses crypto currencies regularly. As with any new technology, it takes time to reach a critical mass. It also takes time for the technology to work through its early deficiencies.
Finally, we have truly deserving currencies entering the world currency competition. The fiat currencies have offered poor choices, where even the best are highly controlled and inflated. The upcoming crypto currency competition will be relentless and fierce. It will ensure only the most innovative, secure, and user loyal cryptos will retain the highest ranks. Attempts to control them will be futile since many alternatives will be waiting in the wings to take their places if the public loses faith in any. Fiat currencies will compete as well, but they will need to curb their inflationary ways considerably to have any hope of surviving as major currencies.
We can also think about the number of crypto currencies from the perspective of the users and suppliers. It is not realistic to say an endless number can be maintained simultaneously. You would need a client, miners and a block chain for each one. If we consider miners, they want to mine coins which will be worth the cost of mining, either now or in the future. Once we get to an adequate number of cryptos to meet the transaction volumes, a new crypto will need to offer something unique and superior to what is already available. Otherwise, it will not be able to attract the miners to support it. I doubt a thousand or even a hundred crypto block chains will be viable long term. It just won’t pay for a miner to continue wasting time and money on something which isn’t going to be adopted by a sizable number of users. The same goes for the client developers. The miners and developers must be coordinated and persistent in their support for many years if the currency is to survive.
From the user’s perspective, they don’t want to maintain dozens of clients just to go about their daily business. They will most likely choose a few crypto variants based on what they buy and what vendors will accept. In the end, there will be a market agreement on which cryptos will be the standards. Over time the pool of standards will evolve. Market forces will remove those currencies which have not lived up to their potential and new ones will be added.
What about someone who chooses to put their money in a crypto which loses all its value? Well, it’s a bit like choosing stocks. There’s no guarantee your choice will always pay off, but keeping your funds in the majors will generally be the safest bet. The key is that you have a choice. In the case of fiat currencies, a citizen of a given country has almost no choice which currency to use for their daily transactions or for salary payment. I would prefer having choices any day over having none.
In summary, we cannot think of Bitcoin as the only true crypto currency. We need to think of the Satoshi crypto currency pool as a whole. It has ushered in a completely new payment and value store option which will benefit the world tremendously. There will be teething pains, but the long term result will be more stable currency markets and, for the first time, a real choice of currencies for the citizens of the world. It will allow people to make their own currency choices unlike ever before.
This begs the question of whether an endless supply will ultimately doom the whole Satoshi crypto currency experiment to a price spiral into the abyss. What prevents an oversupply? The answer is the same as for anything else which is traded. Market forces will control the number of variants, and eventually produce a crypto currency supply equilibrium.
The details are not easy to predict, but I suspect it will go something like this. An essentially constant stream of new crypto currencies will appear from this point forward. Some will be clones of existing ones to provide added transaction bandwidth. Others will provide new features. However, only a limited number will become widely adopted by the general public. Look at fiat currencies. There are about 200 of them, but the vast majority of commerce on the planet occurs in just a half dozen or so fiats. We will see the crypto currency majors, minors and then “the others”. The exact number of each is hard to say, but I would think somewhere in the range of 10-20 majors and another 15-30 minors may be a good guess. Then dozens of others will constantly vie for entry into the higher ranks. It may take 15-25 years to get to equilibrium, where a large percentage of world population uses crypto currencies regularly. As with any new technology, it takes time to reach a critical mass. It also takes time for the technology to work through its early deficiencies.
Finally, we have truly deserving currencies entering the world currency competition. The fiat currencies have offered poor choices, where even the best are highly controlled and inflated. The upcoming crypto currency competition will be relentless and fierce. It will ensure only the most innovative, secure, and user loyal cryptos will retain the highest ranks. Attempts to control them will be futile since many alternatives will be waiting in the wings to take their places if the public loses faith in any. Fiat currencies will compete as well, but they will need to curb their inflationary ways considerably to have any hope of surviving as major currencies.
We can also think about the number of crypto currencies from the perspective of the users and suppliers. It is not realistic to say an endless number can be maintained simultaneously. You would need a client, miners and a block chain for each one. If we consider miners, they want to mine coins which will be worth the cost of mining, either now or in the future. Once we get to an adequate number of cryptos to meet the transaction volumes, a new crypto will need to offer something unique and superior to what is already available. Otherwise, it will not be able to attract the miners to support it. I doubt a thousand or even a hundred crypto block chains will be viable long term. It just won’t pay for a miner to continue wasting time and money on something which isn’t going to be adopted by a sizable number of users. The same goes for the client developers. The miners and developers must be coordinated and persistent in their support for many years if the currency is to survive.
From the user’s perspective, they don’t want to maintain dozens of clients just to go about their daily business. They will most likely choose a few crypto variants based on what they buy and what vendors will accept. In the end, there will be a market agreement on which cryptos will be the standards. Over time the pool of standards will evolve. Market forces will remove those currencies which have not lived up to their potential and new ones will be added.
What about someone who chooses to put their money in a crypto which loses all its value? Well, it’s a bit like choosing stocks. There’s no guarantee your choice will always pay off, but keeping your funds in the majors will generally be the safest bet. The key is that you have a choice. In the case of fiat currencies, a citizen of a given country has almost no choice which currency to use for their daily transactions or for salary payment. I would prefer having choices any day over having none.
In summary, we cannot think of Bitcoin as the only true crypto currency. We need to think of the Satoshi crypto currency pool as a whole. It has ushered in a completely new payment and value store option which will benefit the world tremendously. There will be teething pains, but the long term result will be more stable currency markets and, for the first time, a real choice of currencies for the citizens of the world. It will allow people to make their own currency choices unlike ever before.
Some altcoins have utility. They derive value the same way Bitcoin does:
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
This not true, LTC copied the scrypt hashing algorithm from tenebrix, yet tenebrix failed.
tenebrix was not a coin. It was inflationary, and it was pre-mined.
Had it not been either of these things it probably would have succeeded. It lacked utility in a sense that the time till inflation would have negated the gargantuan pre-mine would have been many years.
Fairbrix would have succeeded if it had protection against a 51% attack.
Everyone has there own opinions about what works and what dosent. The fact is pre-mine or not dosent matter. Its the team behind it that matters along with all other technical aspects of the coin. Some get lucky with coins some dont. Unfortunately now, with umteenmillion alts. every week coming out, its much harder to distinguish, rather than several months or years earlier, would have been much easier to get a success.
Some altcoins have utility. They derive value the same way Bitcoin does:
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
This not true, LTC copied the scrypt hashing algorithm from tenebrix, yet tenebrix failed.
Age of Coin
Hash Rate?
Innovation
On going Development
Amount of Coins (and total coins)
Launch (bad/good)
Uses
chances of survival
=
Namecoin no1 <3
Hash Rate?
Innovation
On going Development
Amount of Coins (and total coins)
Launch (bad/good)
Uses
chances of survival
=
Namecoin no1 <3
Some altcoins have utility. They derive value the same way Bitcoin does:
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
The ways of acquiring them, the people interested in doing so and economic activity taking place because and after it.
Litecoin had utility initially because its different hashing algorithm, which became more pronounced with the release of Bitcoin ASICs, it would never have gotten that far without that and only recently secondary economic activity started taking place. I don't see any other altcoin archiving that, except namecoin which derives it's utility by other means.
Actually backing your coin, as in standing ready to buy it back at very nearly the price you sold it for, does seem to be useful.
Take a look at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html
See all those assets valued at more than one bitcoin? Those are the ones whose theory was that its backing your currency that makes it valuable.
-MarkM-
Take a look at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html
See all those assets valued at more than one bitcoin? Those are the ones whose theory was that its backing your currency that makes it valuable.
-MarkM-
I recently saw a discussion where this was asked and apparently nobody knew the answer:
To start with, how appropriate their title is.
I'm asking about inherent value. Vaginacoin is about as inherently valuable as every other release on this forum.
Well, after much observation, let me tell you what the answer is. For at least the first year, the most valuable feature of any altcoin is its development team. Most especially, the altcoin's lead developer. This is the only reason why Litecoin is succeeding where other altcoins have failed. Some people think that what you really need is good marketing, but they fail to see that good marketing comes naturally from a strong dev team.
I'd be interested to see what everyone's thoughts on this are.
What about these altcoins makes them worthy of investment? Please, enlighten me. I can crank out several per day.
To start with, how appropriate their title is.
Well, after much observation, let me tell you what the answer is. For at least the first year, the most valuable feature of any altcoin is its development team. Most especially, the altcoin's lead developer. This is the only reason why Litecoin is succeeding where other altcoins have failed. Some people think that what you really need is good marketing, but they fail to see that good marketing comes naturally from a strong dev team.
I'd be interested to see what everyone's thoughts on this are.
Not true, Litecoin development team is very weak, mostly a copy pasta team (syncing Bitcoin changes to Litecoin), not a real development team, and also not as active as PPC development. Yet PPC is far less valuable than LTC. LTC is valuable because there are actually services for it, TPB accepts it, tons of traders on this forum accepts it, and there's ltcglobal (which means if you want to buy shares in BTCT.CO, you MUST buy LTC), and then there's atlantis.
"Value" means different things to different people. Here's how it breaks down, imho:
Well-intentioned altcoin Dev: "I will create a coin that is at least a 1% improvement over other coins (in speed, security, other features). That in itself is a valuable contribution to the world and that's all I want. Here, world, try this! I've only mined enough to test it!"
Serious trader: "A new coin? Sure, I'll buy, let me do some due diligence before I spend tons of cash. 1% better? Great, great! So it's worth something... Do you have any support ready to buy it at a set price on exchanges and prevent a dump? No? Alright then, how many are you keeping for yourself? No premines? Nothing at all... So you're telling me you think your coin is worthless! But you want me to buy it with actual money? Ahmm... Let me talk it over with my pump-and-dump buddies..."
Pump-and-dumper: "Huh, this thing is starting out with low difficulty and no support... Better throw all I've got at is early on and dump all the way down before all the noobs switch from looking at coinchoose... Amazing that there's still 'tards left to buy these turds! With my superior intellect I've even come up with a corollary: "Any exchange of similar cryptocoins will expand to include all available idiots, diluting its total value down to Epsilon per share""
Exchange: "We don't care what it is, we want VOLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUME! Premines for the short-term win!!"
Average miner: "New coin huh? If it's ASIC resistant I can mine it, as long as I can trust your wallet code... Aww too late, already doing the circuits in coinchoose... By the time I get my first block the prices will have dropped so I have to cut that profit figure in, let's say, half... Not worth the time, nope, not going to mine it, better stay blue chip! I'll just stick my poorest performer on it, just in case I get lucky. Gotta buy a ticket to win the lottery right? Now if you'd said there was support so I know the price's not going to drop below my power costs..."
Idiot left holding the bag: "I have millions of these, I'll make a killing in 10 years when it's worth 2000$ a piece!"
Average new coin supporter: "We like this thing, we want to mine it, just don't premine, it wouldn't be fair to us. Also make it hard to mine at first, but not so hard that WE can't mine it, because WE LIKE YOUR COIN. Make it so nobody but the deserving should get in on this at first... although... eventually it would be a good idea to see if we can get people in the real world to use it. Can't do that now though, since it's not stable yet... oh well. Here's a donation, please like me, I like your coin!"
Less-than-average altcoin coder: "Twatcoin! Durhurhurhur!"
Did I forget anyone?
...
My point is, there's very likely a sweet spot between no support and full frontal premining where a coin should achieve stability at launch on exchanges, because everyone can see the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the new coin. I mean would you, today, buy real Freedonian dollars knowing there's no one to back them, no development, no real assets behind them? Would you buy them if you know that every time the creator of those dollars sells jalapenos from a plant in his dorm window, he uses the proceeds to buy more Freedonian dollars, supporting their price?
Anyway, this is my worldview.
(yes, the people in my head talk in funny voices too ) I'm not an economist, so sometimes I feel I fit right in. 
Well-intentioned altcoin Dev: "I will create a coin that is at least a 1% improvement over other coins (in speed, security, other features). That in itself is a valuable contribution to the world and that's all I want. Here, world, try this! I've only mined enough to test it!"
Serious trader: "A new coin? Sure, I'll buy, let me do some due diligence before I spend tons of cash. 1% better? Great, great! So it's worth something... Do you have any support ready to buy it at a set price on exchanges and prevent a dump? No? Alright then, how many are you keeping for yourself? No premines? Nothing at all... So you're telling me you think your coin is worthless! But you want me to buy it with actual money? Ahmm... Let me talk it over with my pump-and-dump buddies..."
Pump-and-dumper: "Huh, this thing is starting out with low difficulty and no support... Better throw all I've got at is early on and dump all the way down before all the noobs switch from looking at coinchoose... Amazing that there's still 'tards left to buy these turds! With my superior intellect I've even come up with a corollary: "Any exchange of similar cryptocoins will expand to include all available idiots, diluting its total value down to Epsilon per share""
Exchange: "We don't care what it is, we want VOLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUME! Premines for the short-term win!!"
Average miner: "New coin huh? If it's ASIC resistant I can mine it, as long as I can trust your wallet code... Aww too late, already doing the circuits in coinchoose... By the time I get my first block the prices will have dropped so I have to cut that profit figure in, let's say, half... Not worth the time, nope, not going to mine it, better stay blue chip! I'll just stick my poorest performer on it, just in case I get lucky. Gotta buy a ticket to win the lottery right? Now if you'd said there was support so I know the price's not going to drop below my power costs..."
Idiot left holding the bag: "I have millions of these, I'll make a killing in 10 years when it's worth 2000$ a piece!"
Average new coin supporter: "We like this thing, we want to mine it, just don't premine, it wouldn't be fair to us. Also make it hard to mine at first, but not so hard that WE can't mine it, because WE LIKE YOUR COIN. Make it so nobody but the deserving should get in on this at first... although... eventually it would be a good idea to see if we can get people in the real world to use it. Can't do that now though, since it's not stable yet... oh well. Here's a donation, please like me, I like your coin!"
Less-than-average altcoin coder: "Twatcoin! Durhurhurhur!"
Did I forget anyone?
...
My point is, there's very likely a sweet spot between no support and full frontal premining where a coin should achieve stability at launch on exchanges, because everyone can see the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the new coin. I mean would you, today, buy real Freedonian dollars knowing there's no one to back them, no development, no real assets behind them? Would you buy them if you know that every time the creator of those dollars sells jalapenos from a plant in his dorm window, he uses the proceeds to buy more Freedonian dollars, supporting their price?
Anyway, this is my worldview.
(yes, the people in my head talk in funny voices too ) I'm not an economist, so sometimes I feel I fit right in. 
While a coin needs a good development team to get it going, it needs a reason to stay around in order to have real staying power. None of the clone coins have such a reason, so they eventually die out (after the inevitable pump and dump). Coins like litecoin, devcoin, ppcoin, and namecoin were unique enough to gain the critical mass that allowed them to survive.
There's nothing but cosmetics original in Litecoin. If originality is the only thing required for coin to survive Litecoin would die week after it's creation.
It's a copy of Tenebrix who was real innovation but failed due to, even I must say it, excessive premine, and Fairbrix who was also Tenebrix copy, not premined one but failed due to attacks and some bad coding..
Make a look at it's original thread and you'll see no difference than with any of last few weeks releases. People saying it's pointless, doesn't bring anything new,etc, etc.. it was just launched at real time and somehow everything kicked good for it.
Litecoin wasn't original similar to how Microsoft Windows wasn't original.
I took all the innovations (Solidcoin's fast transaction time, Tenebrix's scrypt), put it together without the baggage (Tenebrix's multicoin code, premines), picked a good and memorable name, and released it in a fair manner. The innovation is not any of the pieces by themselves but the package as a whole. It's not an accident that Litecoin is thriving and most of the alt coins before it are all dead.
It was not original, period. And that's what was in the post I was answering on.
I won't argue with other stuff, right time, right place, picked support, that's good.
I will never support a coin with a premine.
I disagree.
Althought I hate the premined coins of today I belive a fair premine is very beneficial for an altcoin. By fair I mean that there are fixed prices and ammounts to sell them at exchanges. f.e first premined 10.000 ATC will be sold for 0.001BTC (limit order) each and the money won't just go to the developers or just very limited if it's a huge success.
The reward will be used by an foundation to compensate first the expenses*2 (hosting,domains,...) to early supporters and at last to new inovations. If a developer wants to make serious money nobody stops him to be an early adopter.
Example:
If someone donated 1000LTC at the beginning it wouldn't have made much difference for anyone, but 1000LTC with a limit order of 0.03BTC is serious money and motivates everyone to improve the crypto in the beginning.
While a coin needs a good development team to get it going, it needs a reason to stay around in order to have real staying power. None of the clone coins have such a reason, so they eventually die out (after the inevitable pump and dump). Coins like litecoin, devcoin, ppcoin, and namecoin were unique enough to gain the critical mass that allowed them to survive.
There's nothing but cosmetics original in Litecoin. If originality is the only thing required for coin to survive Litecoin would die week after it's creation.
It's a copy of Tenebrix who was real innovation but failed due to, even I must say it, excessive premine, and Fairbrix who was also Tenebrix copy, not premined one but failed due to attacks and some bad coding..
Make a look at it's original thread and you'll see no difference than with any of last few weeks releases. People saying it's pointless, doesn't bring anything new,etc, etc.. it was just launched at real time and somehow everything kicked good for it.
Litecoin wasn't original similar to how Microsoft Windows wasn't original.
I took all the innovations (Solidcoin's fast transaction time, Tenebrix's scrypt), put it together without the baggage (Tenebrix's multicoin code, premines), picked a good and memorable name, and released it in a fair manner. The innovation is not any of the pieces by themselves but the package as a whole. It's not an accident that Litecoin is thriving and most of the alt coins before it are all dead.
Kinda what I think about PPC too. (minus the name which, with no bad intentions, verbally sounds off).
At this point though, even if a coin was really really innovative and could save the world, I don't see any able to take over (or even mimic) ''the big 3" (btc, ltc, ppc). The advantage of being the first is too strong and the community is not gonna spread the love more than it already has.
What makes Alt Coins valuable?
1. Speculation
2. Developers
3. Integrated marketing communications
4. Alt coin Miners
5. Alt coin Exchanges
6. Public, Company, Government Support
7. Trust
8. Innovation
1. Speculation
2. Developers
3. Integrated marketing communications
4. Alt coin Miners
5. Alt coin Exchanges
6. Public, Company, Government Support
7. Trust
8. Innovation
grassroot and dev support
While a coin needs a good development team to get it going, it needs a reason to stay around in order to have real staying power. None of the clone coins have such a reason, so they eventually die out (after the inevitable pump and dump). Coins like litecoin, devcoin, ppcoin, and namecoin were unique enough to gain the critical mass that allowed them to survive.
There's nothing but cosmetics original in Litecoin. If originality is the only thing required for coin to survive Litecoin would die week after it's creation.
It's a copy of Tenebrix who was real innovation but failed due to, even I must say it, excessive premine, and Fairbrix who was also Tenebrix copy, not premined one but failed due to attacks and some bad coding..
Make a look at it's original thread and you'll see no difference than with any of last few weeks releases. People saying it's pointless, doesn't bring anything new,etc, etc.. it was just launched at real time and somehow everything kicked good for it.
Litecoin wasn't original similar to how Microsoft Windows wasn't original.
I took all the innovations (Solidcoin's fast transaction time, Tenebrix's scrypt), put it together without the baggage (Tenebrix's multicoin code, premines), picked a good and memorable name, and released it in a fair manner. The innovation is not any of the pieces by themselves but the package as a whole. It's not an accident that Litecoin is thriving and most of the alt coins before it are all dead.
While a coin needs a good development team to get it going, it needs a reason to stay around in order to have real staying power. None of the clone coins have such a reason, so they eventually die out (after the inevitable pump and dump). Coins like litecoin, devcoin, ppcoin, and namecoin were unique enough to gain the critical mass that allowed them to survive.
There's nothing but cosmetics original in Litecoin. If originality is the only thing required for coin to survive Litecoin would die week after it's creation.
It's a copy of Tenebrix who was real innovation but failed due to, even I must say it, excessive premine, and Fairbrix who was also Tenebrix copy, not premined one but failed due to attacks and some bad coding..
Make a look at it's original thread and you'll see no difference than with any of last few weeks releases. People saying it's pointless, doesn't bring anything new,etc, etc.. it was just launched at real time and somehow everything kicked good for it.
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