At the moment I prefer Bitcoin, but I am looking for an alternative. Can anyone suggest me some alternative cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin ?!
P.S: I'm so sorry if I post this in the wrong board but I don't know what is right board for this question. If I post this in the wrong board, please move it to the right one, thank you.
This is a bitcoin forum. So I expect that most of us are here because of bitcoin. It's been the most popular crypto so far and the first to really took off. There's no doubt that bitcoin will remain the dominant coin in the next decade. But as far as altcoins is concern, they are also making a headway around November last year and still continue to grow at dramatic level. The best altcoin that I can only suggest is Ethereum. Initially this coin is just another pump and dump, but it looks like smart contracts technology is now gaining grounds to other markets specially banking systems. Seems that the financial industry is looking at alternatives now to improved their old and traditional system. And Ethereum is one coin on their radar that's why the price is above $1000 today. As for Ripple, there have been talks that it will be take over, however, the market has experienced some sort of correction and now below $100B market capitalization. And there are a lot opposing this coins because of its being pre-mined and very centralized. So I also prefer Ethereum and I suggest you do look at this coin at a long term investment as well.
Those are very good points you make. I want to offer a counter point in the most respectful manner. Its easy to assume that because bitcoin is the first and has dominated that it will always dominate. But 10 years is a long time. I remember when myspace was king of the world in the social media space, the first and the biggest on the block only to be knocked off later. Bitcoins disadvantages are well documented and the main one being the fact that its a public ledger and its blockchain contains all transactions from everyone. The proof of work concept is also a big expensive factor. So I predict that at some point there will be a coin possibly out of the 1500+ that exist or a new coin/blockchain that will dethrone bitcoin as the king.
Now lets talk Ethereum. Ethereum has been awesome because it has been able to do things that BTC cannot, mainly execute smart contracts which caused an explosion in its ICOs being run through their ETH blockchain. Here the same thing, using past performance to predict future results can dangerous. Here is why. First you can see that lately ETH has been hit harder than BTC. Why is that? Two reasons. #1 is that ETH meteoric rise was fueled by ICOs. Everyone doing an ICO on the blockchain had to buy Ether. At 20 to 50 million dollars per ICO that is a lot of ETH. So this sent the price skyrocketing. Lately though as the market as tanked very few ICOs are going off so the demand for ETH has tanked with it. The second reason and this is the reason why ETH coming back strong is not a guarantee is that there are other competing blockchains out there and are coming on board that are significantly faster and cheaper than the ETH BC. So competition is a major factor as future ICOs will be run on other blockchains and less ETH will be demanded as a result. Which goes back to another weakness of Bitcoin. It has no utility or application beyond being able to trade it or make purchases with it.
That is my take and again I offer the counter point with much respect. I am new on bitcointalk and am mindful of that, but I have a lot of experience in cryptos and traditional businesses