The vast majority have no purpose whatsoever. Many people are disappointed they found Bitcoin this 'late' (which is ridiculous because it's still early) and try to get rich by scamming newbies into buying their scamcoins.
A few altcoins offer something useful, but nothing gigantic. Proof of Stake by PeerCoin is innovative and another hash algorithm (Litecoin) was too at the time. The thing is that when such things prove to be really advantageous they can just be included into Bitcoin as well.
A few altcoins offer something useful, but nothing gigantic. Proof of Stake by PeerCoin is innovative and another hash algorithm (Litecoin) was too at the time. The thing is that when such things prove to be really advantageous they can just be included into Bitcoin as well.
That's absolutely NOT true. Nobody will ever change bitcoin SHA-256 and if the core development decide to do it nobody will follow them.
There are millions and millions invested in ASIC miners, if there is one thing that will never change in bitcoin is PoW SHA-256
They will if a flaw in SHA is ever discovered. It's just very unlikely.
