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Reminder: not all cryptocurrencies are this wasteful. Don’t disregard cryptos in general for the pitfalls of the first one.
by MadSudaca 7y ago
Reminder: not all cryptocurrencies are this wasteful. Don’t disregard cryptos in general for the pitfalls of the first one.
- jessaustin 7y agoWhy can't the less "wasteful" currencies compete with bitcoin? (serious question; I've never owned it and though the crypto seems straightforward enough I don't feel I understand the market in general)
- MadSudaca 7y agoSeveral reasons. There have been to many scam projects so it’s hard for most people to separate wheat from shaft. Bitcoin is oldest and therefore the most accessible one, with more ways to buy it and trade it. Finally, there’s vested interests that help keep the status quo as it is. For example, miners who have invested capital in mining equipment and who wish to keep making a profit.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoIt's normally "separate the wheat from the chaff". But "from the shaft" seems particularly appropriate, given that you were talking about scams...
- MadSudaca 7y agoThanks, this is embarrassing haha. I won’t forget how to spell chaff now.
- jessaustin 7y agoThe first several reasons seem plausible; the last one does not. It isn't clear why the cryptocurrency community would care about others' investments in mining equipment. If I had made such investments, I would use bitcoin, but that wouldn't force anyone else to use it.
- MadSudaca 7y agoTrue, but you could use your money and influence to try and prevent the market from moving to other, more efficient cryptocurrencies. Remember that BTC started in 2009, significant efforts have been made to build infrastructure around it. Many people got rich thanks to the increase in price. There’s a lot of money and emotions invested, for material and philosophical reasons.
- thebean11 7y agoIn short I would say it's network effect. Those networks are less secure because they have fewer participants, and have fewer participants because they are less secure.
- Benmcdonald__ 7y agoBecause they don't exist. All vaporwear selling scam tokens
- MadSudaca 7y agoAll is a strong word. This implies that since 2009, no protocol has emerged which is able to overcome some of Bitcoin’s pitfalls, or has different trade-offs that place it ahead for some specific usecases, i.a. day-to-day use cryptocurrency.
- jessaustin 7y agoYes, that is implied by the dominance of bitcoin. If a competitive protocol had emerged, we would expect that someone could cite it as an example ITT.
- MadSudaca 7y agoYou'd be surprised.