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Most cryptos are definitely pump and dump ponzis designed to eat your money, there is definitely a technocracy-like barrier for entry if you want to join the cr

Most cryptos are definitely pump and dump ponzis designed to eat your money, there is definitely a technocracy-like barrier for entry if you want to join the crypto bandwagon. Focus your time and energy on BTC, ETH and an anonymous coin like XMR. Any other offering should be met with skepticism.

tradersam 9y ago
I would add LTC to your list, but besides that I don't know why you're being downvoted.
- johndevor 9y ago
  What's the main argument for ltc?
  - lojack 9y ago
    More decentralization because you don't essentially need a special purpose FPGA (or whatever is popular these days) specifically meant for mining coins, as these special purpose machines are typically more centralized in larger farms. I'm not familiar enough with LTC to say if this will continue for the future, but thats the standard argument in favor.
    - lhl 9y ago
      If this is your main reasoning argument for Litecoin, then I have bad news for you, as you're completely wrong. Litecoin's PoW algorithm uses Scrypt and is second only to Bitcoin's SHA256 as far as ASIC-based mining goes. This has been the case for 3 years now and at this point Scrypt ASICs are hashing between 100-200X more efficient both on a $/H and W/H basis vs GPUs. (Anyone with a passing familiarity w/ CCs would know this, but still, it feels like statements that are so blatantly counterfactual should probably be noted.)
  - kemonocode 9y ago
    Development moves faster and with far less bureaucratic hurdles than with Bitcoin. No contentious forks (thus far), they had SegWit first and chances are they will have working, beyond proof-of-concept Lightning first.
    - apapli 9y ago
      They just successfully completed an atomic swap with bitcoin so yes LTC is defitely innovating too.
      - teknico 9y ago
        Another valuable coin missing from that list is Decred (DCR, https://decred.org/ https://decred.org/ ). The on-chain atomic swap (no Lightning Network involved yet) was executed using Decred technology ( https://github.com/decred/atomicswap https://github.com/decred/atomicswap ) and was preceded by a DCR-LTC swap ( https://blog.decred.org/2017/09/20/On-Chain-Atomic-Swaps/ https://blog.decred.org/2017/09/20/On-Chain-Atomic-Swaps/ ). (De)credit where credit is due. ;-)
    - johnvonneumann 9y ago
      Just to affirm what this guy said, these reasons are pretty much why LTC should be on your radar. The heretic in me actually things that LTC could potentially have more value than BTC these days just because they seem to have their shit together development-wise.
      - tpallarino 9y ago
        The only reason they haven't had contentious forks and there is less bureaucracy is precisely because nobody cares.
        johnvonneumann 9y ago
        Nobody cares about what? Litecoin or the bullshit?
    - 9y ago
zorpner 9y ago
Upvoted because this advice directly makes me money ;)
- AbenezerMamo 9y ago
  hahah xD This is actually really funny
- gesman 9y ago
  Disclaimer of the day :)
AgentME 9y ago
>Focus your time and energy on BTC, ETH and an anonymous coin like XMR. Any other offering should be met with skepticism. To elaborate/explain on this point for those less familiar: those three cryptocurrencies actually are based on real technical innovation, and have developer communities producing more technical innovation. There are many other cryptocurrencies that have zero technical innovation (or completely nonsense innovation) and are merely clones of previous cryptocurrencies with some identifiers tweaked, made purely so investors can pump and dump. The article in part 5 ("The decline of Maximalism") seems to be criticizing the idea that people would prefer some cryptocurrencies to others, which is completely ridiculous. There are real differences / issues with many.
- omarchowdhury 9y ago
  Technical innovation is not the only type of innovation happening in the crypto space. There are tokens being developed whose innovations are financial, social, political, and economic. Don't assume technical innovation is the end all be all, Ethereum's technical innovation allows for the other types of innovation to occur, for example. To strengthen my argument, you wouldn't expect every startup on the Internet to develop their own Apache server, HTTP protocol, and all the other technical innovations that allow for their business to exist, would you?
  - AgentME 9y ago
    I don't exactly disagree; I think there are some ICOs that are promising. (And I'm happy that many are being built on top of a pre-existing blockchain like Ethereum's rather than pretending they're secure without a large group of miners securing their blockchain.) Maybe I should drop the word "technical": There are many projects out there with no real innovation whatsoever that were created only to facilitate pump-and-dumps rather than to enable some kind of innovation.
    - pmorici 9y ago
      I think the word you are looking for is differentiation.
gnu8 9y ago
The other ones are pump and dump ponzi schemes, but definitely not mine.
JelteF 9y ago
Another anonymous coin which is interesting is zcash (with the cool URL https://z.cash https://z.cash)
hanniabu 9y ago
Would love to add Blocknet to this. They are the only project that currently has the capability of enabling cross-chain atomic swaps and creates interoperability by allowing data to be passed with these swaps as well.
SippinLean 9y ago
I've seen some you could argue are a pump and dump, an actual Ponzi Scheme on a blockchain would be nearly impossible, it relies on a central ledger so the bad actor can disproportionately transfer the new investors' assets to old. There's been a recent example of someone running a Ponzi using BTC, but that's not an example of a currency being a Ponzi, which is a thing more specific than "scam."

tradersam 9y ago

I would add LTC to your list, but besides that I don't know why you're being downvoted.

johndevor 9y ago
What's the main argument for ltc?
- lojack 9y ago
  More decentralization because you don't essentially need a special purpose FPGA (or whatever is popular these days) specifically meant for mining coins, as these special purpose machines are typically more centralized in larger farms. I'm not familiar enough with LTC to say if this will continue for the future, but thats the standard argument in favor.
  - lhl 9y ago
    If this is your main reasoning argument for Litecoin, then I have bad news for you, as you're completely wrong. Litecoin's PoW algorithm uses Scrypt and is second only to Bitcoin's SHA256 as far as ASIC-based mining goes. This has been the case for 3 years now and at this point Scrypt ASICs are hashing between 100-200X more efficient both on a $/H and W/H basis vs GPUs. (Anyone with a passing familiarity w/ CCs would know this, but still, it feels like statements that are so blatantly counterfactual should probably be noted.)
- kemonocode 9y ago
  Development moves faster and with far less bureaucratic hurdles than with Bitcoin. No contentious forks (thus far), they had SegWit first and chances are they will have working, beyond proof-of-concept Lightning first.
  - apapli 9y ago
    They just successfully completed an atomic swap with bitcoin so yes LTC is defitely innovating too.
    - teknico 9y ago
      Another valuable coin missing from that list is Decred (DCR, https://decred.org/ https://decred.org/ ). The on-chain atomic swap (no Lightning Network involved yet) was executed using Decred technology ( https://github.com/decred/atomicswap https://github.com/decred/atomicswap ) and was preceded by a DCR-LTC swap ( https://blog.decred.org/2017/09/20/On-Chain-Atomic-Swaps/ https://blog.decred.org/2017/09/20/On-Chain-Atomic-Swaps/ ). (De)credit where credit is due. ;-)
  - johnvonneumann 9y ago
    Just to affirm what this guy said, these reasons are pretty much why LTC should be on your radar. The heretic in me actually things that LTC could potentially have more value than BTC these days just because they seem to have their shit together development-wise.
    - tpallarino 9y ago
      The only reason they haven't had contentious forks and there is less bureaucracy is precisely because nobody cares.
      - johnvonneumann 9y ago
        Nobody cares about what? Litecoin or the bullshit?
  - 9y ago

zorpner 9y ago

Upvoted because this advice directly makes me money ;)

AbenezerMamo 9y ago
hahah xD This is actually really funny
gesman 9y ago
Disclaimer of the day :)

AgentME 9y ago

>Focus your time and energy on BTC, ETH and an anonymous coin like XMR. Any other offering should be met with skepticism. To elaborate/explain on this point for those less familiar: those three cryptocurrencies actually are based on real technical innovation, and have developer communities producing more technical innovation. There are many other cryptocurrencies that have zero technical innovation (or completely nonsense innovation) and are merely clones of previous cryptocurrencies with some identifiers tweaked, made purely so investors can pump and dump. The article in part 5 ("The decline of Maximalism") seems to be criticizing the idea that people would prefer some cryptocurrencies to others, which is completely ridiculous. There are real differences / issues with many.

omarchowdhury 9y ago
Technical innovation is not the only type of innovation happening in the crypto space. There are tokens being developed whose innovations are financial, social, political, and economic. Don't assume technical innovation is the end all be all, Ethereum's technical innovation allows for the other types of innovation to occur, for example. To strengthen my argument, you wouldn't expect every startup on the Internet to develop their own Apache server, HTTP protocol, and all the other technical innovations that allow for their business to exist, would you?
- AgentME 9y ago
  I don't exactly disagree; I think there are some ICOs that are promising. (And I'm happy that many are being built on top of a pre-existing blockchain like Ethereum's rather than pretending they're secure without a large group of miners securing their blockchain.) Maybe I should drop the word "technical": There are many projects out there with no real innovation whatsoever that were created only to facilitate pump-and-dumps rather than to enable some kind of innovation.
  - pmorici 9y ago
    I think the word you are looking for is differentiation.

gnu8 9y ago

The other ones are pump and dump ponzi schemes, but definitely not mine.

JelteF 9y ago

Another anonymous coin which is interesting is zcash (with the cool URL https://z.cash https://z.cash)

hanniabu 9y ago

Would love to add Blocknet to this. They are the only project that currently has the capability of enabling cross-chain atomic swaps and creates interoperability by allowing data to be passed with these swaps as well.

SippinLean 9y ago

I've seen some you could argue are a pump and dump, an actual Ponzi Scheme on a blockchain would be nearly impossible, it relies on a central ledger so the bad actor can disproportionately transfer the new investors' assets to old. There's been a recent example of someone running a Ponzi using BTC, but that's not an example of a currency being a Ponzi, which is a thing more specific than "scam."