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Are Altcoins Undermining Bitcoin's Credibility?
An anonymous reader writes The editor of a Bitcoin advocacy site believes the proliferation of altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) is harming Bitcoin's long-term potential as an alternative to traditional currencies. Posting at BadBitcoin.org, a site that seeks to expose online scams that target Bitcoin users, the pseudonymous ViK compares altcoins, including the Internet meme inspired Dogecoin, to a pump-and-dump scheme where developers create their own version of the Bitcoin wallet and blockchain and then "pre-mine" or generate a significant number of cryptocurrency units before the altcoin's official release. Later, when their value has risen, the pre-mined altcoins are exchanged for Bitcoin or in some cases converted directly to cash. While critics of cryptocurrencies in general might find ViK's comments about the altcoin "tulip" mania ironic, the self-confessed Bitcoin fan is nevertheless calling for an altcoin boycott: "The easiest way to stop them is to not participate. We all know that they only have one purpose, and that is to make Bitcoin for the so called developers."
Bitcoin is a social movement dedicated to the elimination of central banks by providing a superior alternative.
This is obviously of concern to the entire class of people who derive unearned benefits via the operation of central banks. That class has an well-trained group of mercenaries that specialize in identifying, infiltrating, and disrupting social movements which threaten the profits of the ruling classes (see the transformation of Occupy the Fed into Occupy Wall Street into irrelevance) via well documented methods (see Snowden leaks, etc.)
Bitcoin is going to be attacked from every angle until such time until either it or central banks no longer exist.
When Bitcoin was launched, Satoshi had only been mining for a day or so. If you had been paying attention to the right forums, you could have started mining more or less at the same time he did and in fact some people (like Hal Finney) did exactly that.
What's more, Satoshi does not appear to have dumped his coins. Nor did he engage in much pumping. Indeed once people started hyperbolically talking about how Bitcoin would bring about world peace, trying to get Wikileaks to accept it and so on he retreated into the background and eventually left. His coins are still there.
Creating something new with no built in advantage for yourself, being totally honest about it, and then when its value soars not selling ..... is pretty much the opposite of a pump and dump scheme.
Clearly Bitcoin has enough credibility for people to value it at hundreds of dollars. You may not think much of it, but as long as there are people willing to exchange it for traditional currency or goods and services that's enough to keep it viable.
The attraction of altcoins is that people who got in early on Bitcoin are not rich, simply because they mined vast quantities of it when mining was easy. People who missed the gold rush now see altcoins as offering a second chance. The only problem is that there are so many and most will fail, so you have to pick the right one AND get in very early with significant mining power (initial outlay).
Actually it gets worse because most altcoins were designed to be ASIC-proof, but now ASICs are appearing to mine them anyway so there is yet more expense to stay competitive.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I just don't agree with him. Bitcoins have some serious issues. If someone develops a digital currency that addresses those issues and makes them more practical for every day use I support it. If I had to wait for 10 minutes to get my starbucks coffee paid for I'd probably decide to just pay cash. I also wonder how quickly the blockchain would grow if bitcoin became more mainstream. Anonymity is also an issue. I think competition between digital currencies will only make them more practical and robust. That can only be a good thing for digital currencies in the long run. If progress is not made digital currencies will never replace conventional ones.
Make sure that form is stamped five times, otherwise the head bureaucrat will summon the guards to bring him the form to fill out to have you taken away.
In Soviet Russia, five stamps summon... oh, forget it.
Actually, I interrupt this Slashdot joke to point out that the number five actually plays a significant role in old Soviet Russia bureaucracy jokes. Quoth Wikipedia:
The genitive plural of a noun (used with a numeral to indicate five or more of something, as opposed to the dual, used for two, three, or four, see Russian nouns) is a rather unpredictable form of the Russian noun, and there are a handful of words which even native speakers have trouble producing this form of (either due to rarity or an actual lexical gap). A common example of this is kocherga (fireplace poker). The joke is set in a Soviet factory. Five pokers are to be requisitioned. The correct forms are acquired, but as they are being filled out, a debate arises: what is the genitive plural of kocherga? Is it Kocherg? Kocherieg? Kochergov?... One thing is clear: a form with the wrong genitive plural of kocherga will bring disaster from the typically pedantic bureaucrats. Finally, an old janitor overhears the commotion, and tells them to send in two separate requisitions: one for two kochergi and another for three kochergi. In some versions, they send in a request for 4 kochergi and one extra to find out the correct word, only to receive back "here are your 4 kochergi and one extra." A similar story by Mikhail Zoshchenko involves yet another answer: after great care and multiple drafts to get the genitive case correct, including the substitution of "five ÑÑÑfÐ (pieces)" for "five pokers", the response comes back: the warehouse has no kocherezhek.