It's been remarkably quiet in here lately, given the price action. Everyone glued to BTC drama?
I'm very glad I diversified into alts in 2014, otherwise I'd be very uncomfortable right now.
BTC purists are slagging off the alts and spouting various implausible conspiracy theories, so there is real pain for them - it's not just discomfort...
However, it is just common sense to have a balanced portfolio in crypto. At times like this, it is quite obvious why.
That said, the rise of alts has been huge these past few months with BTC down to 66.3% of the overall crypto market. Yep, down to under two thirds. It is true that we are in an alt bubble, so if someone waves a magic wand and ends the civil war, I would expect a sea of red, but the crypto space does have serious contenders now and BTC is never going to be over 90% of the market again.
The only thing to watch out for is that a total collapse in the price of BTC to (say) under $500 will depress the entire market. Some capital will leave and some exchanges and miners may even be in trouble. If we are heading for 2014 all over again, it will not be easy no matter what you are holding.
I have been of the opinion for many years that sooner or later some other crypto would replace BTC. The reason is simple, there are literally hundreds of cryptocurrencies that are technically superior to BTC. In the past when I pointed out that BTC block time is not realistic if the intent is to replace cash, I was told that BTC could just change the block time, so these upstart alts with shorter block times don't even matter. But the truth is that BTC will never, and can never, change the block time; and the reason I feel confident in saying so is that it has now literally been years without a consensus on a scaling solution. If they can't find consensus on a block size issue in years, they will never, ever, be able to agree on a block time change (although that too would help address the scaling issue). No, the block time, and reward for BTC are set in stone and no consensus on change would ever arise, which means BTC will never be a viable replacement for cash. Even if the block size dispute is settled such that I can get a small transaction in the very next block every single time with a tiny fee, waiting 10 minutes on average is too long for a substitute for cash.
BTC has been benefiting from the network effect of having been first. I have always considered it a matter of time until some replacement asserts itself. I will admit I did not even suspect monero though until the past 6 months or so. I have been moving the majority of my BTC into a handful of promising alts for more than a year and this past six months or so (but especially the past two months) has been insanely profitable for me. Of the top 5 cryptos by market cap I have been accumulating all of them except for ripple (because who needs a centralized cryptocurrency anyway?) so the transfer away from BTC to alts has been very welcome to me.
But I agree, a full on floundering for BTC would be bad for everything. I would rather see a slow and steady decline for BTC while it was replaced by alts.