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No matter how many non-PoW shitcoins you make, the main one (BTC) is not going to change and remains the dominant one. You can't solve the problem by creating m

No matter how many non-PoW shitcoins you make, the main one (BTC) is not going to change and remains the dominant one. You can't solve the problem by creating more shitcoins, only by crashing the whole field into the ground.

Retric 5y ago
Bitcoin is far from #1 in terms of transactions per day which seems like the only important measurement of adoption.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  For the purposes of environmental hazard, it isn't number of transactions that matter but number of miners. That in turn is going to depend on the expected payout to miners (either in value of new coin or in transaction fees). New coin mining rate is fixed for bitcoin, so the only parameters one can change to reduce the environmental impact are value and transaction fees.
- laurowyn 5y ago
  But as the coin with the largest market cap, greater than the next 9 put together [1], is by far the biggest one. I agree though. Bitcoin isn't the only crypto coin worth talking about. [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurrencies/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurren...
- atweiden 5y ago
  If transactional demand were the only useful adoption metric for money, where would that leave gold? The most important factor in a particular asset’s “adoption” as currency is its propensity to act as the unit of account for international settlement between nation-states.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Gold has more transactions per day than all crypto coins combined. In terms of value it’s moving ~200 billion dollars per day in exchanges.
    - yaa_minu 5y ago
      Exchange transactions and on-chain transactions are not the same, no?
      - Retric 5y ago
        I am talking about gold on exchanges, that’s excluding real world gold transactions. Adding or removing exchange transactions on both sides isn’t enough to surpass or even come close to gold by either total volume or total dollar value of transactions. Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me. I always find it amusing that people are downvoting objective facts, but hey emotions trump truth.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  If you're looking at in in terms of transaction on the blockchain perhaps, but the reality is that a single transaction on the blockchain actually maps to many other transactions (for example, exchanges batch their outputs, so even though it appears as a single transaction, they could be paying hundreds of people at a time, likewise for lightning or other layers).
  - Retric 5y ago
    Even the most generous interpretation of the lightning network doesn’t actually add enough transactions to get %1. In theory it could, but Bitcoin simply isn’t used for much beyond speculation right now.
- floydnoel 5y ago
  The absolute number of transactions is of little importance. Bitcoin moves around a billion+ dollars an hour. Ethereum is 1/10 of that. So Bitcoin is definitely #1 in terms of transacted value per day, which is the only important measure of adoption.
  - Sargos 5y ago
    Not true. Ethereum moves about 10 billion a day while Bitcoin moves about 9 billion a day. https://money-movers.info/ https://money-movers.info/ This is just comparing the base assets, adding in stablecoins makes the gap even larger with Ethereum moving 27 billion and Bitcoin moving 9 billion.
sprafa 5y ago
Bitcoin will eventually fade away, since the only significant thing that's actually happening in crypto space is actually smart contracts, and BTC will never implement that. In 10 years it it will be a historical curiosity. Also - shitcoins? So DOT, ALGO are shitcoins? You seem out of the loop.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  Smart contracts don't need to be implemented at the base layer, you can have other layers and protocols and still transact in Bitcoin. There is rsk, sovryn and rgb on lightning and you can still use Bitcoin with ethereum or other smart contract platforms.
  - Sargos 5y ago
    All of those are custodial solutions which defeats the purpose of blockchains.
    - kevinak 5y ago
      RGB isn't custodial at all.
  - sprafa 5y ago
    found the bitcoin maxi. It's amazing how all the "smart" people here in HN are consistently wrong on blockchain, and even the ones who are attuned to it are usually involved in BTC and defend it hysterically.
erdos4d 5y ago
This is only because crypto is still a curiosity. Once a coin gains enough mass adoption to actually function as digital cash by normal people, it will leave Bitcoin in the dust. My bet is on Monero for that, but whether I am right or not, I'm 100% certain that coin won't be Bitcoin.
- cryptica 5y ago
  I think this conclusion is correct. I can think of two reasons why no other token has been able to surpass Bitcoin: - Network effects arising as a result of having many crypto markets which use BTC as the base currency. This gives BTC a lot of exposure on trading platforms. BTC is therefore a gateway to the crypto ecosystem; kind of like a reserve currency. - Most big mainstream investors don't have any interest in advancing the field. Their main concern is preventing crypto from disrupting their existing corporate interests. They will buy a majority stake in a crypto and then encourage founders to waste time and resources... They want to create jobs to keep developers busy on useless activities; that way these developers are not competing with corporate interests. Also, because all these wasteful crypto projects occupy all the top rankings on coinmarketcap and occupy most investors' trading screens, it prevents smaller, more promising projects from getting any attention so it prevents the crypto industry from becoming disruptive. (Though at best this will probably only delay things by a decade or so until new exchanges start launching and start listing different non-mainstream tokens).
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Much of the BTC as base currency isn’t actually BTC on the blockchain - but “BTC” held by the exchange and transferred between customers via a database and NOT on chain.
    - cryptica 5y ago
      I'm a blockchain developer and I wrote a DEX from scratch so I know exactly how that works :) It doesn't change the fundamentals.
- redisman 5y ago

Retric 5y ago

Bitcoin is far from #1 in terms of transactions per day which seems like the only important measurement of adoption.

ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
For the purposes of environmental hazard, it isn't number of transactions that matter but number of miners. That in turn is going to depend on the expected payout to miners (either in value of new coin or in transaction fees). New coin mining rate is fixed for bitcoin, so the only parameters one can change to reduce the environmental impact are value and transaction fees.
laurowyn 5y ago
But as the coin with the largest market cap, greater than the next 9 put together [1], is by far the biggest one. I agree though. Bitcoin isn't the only crypto coin worth talking about. [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurrencies/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/top-10-cryptocurren...
atweiden 5y ago
If transactional demand were the only useful adoption metric for money, where would that leave gold? The most important factor in a particular asset’s “adoption” as currency is its propensity to act as the unit of account for international settlement between nation-states.
- Retric 5y ago
  Gold has more transactions per day than all crypto coins combined. In terms of value it’s moving ~200 billion dollars per day in exchanges.
  - yaa_minu 5y ago
    Exchange transactions and on-chain transactions are not the same, no?
    - Retric 5y ago
      I am talking about gold on exchanges, that’s excluding real world gold transactions. Adding or removing exchange transactions on both sides isn’t enough to surpass or even come close to gold by either total volume or total dollar value of transactions. Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me. I always find it amusing that people are downvoting objective facts, but hey emotions trump truth.
rawtxapp 5y ago
If you're looking at in in terms of transaction on the blockchain perhaps, but the reality is that a single transaction on the blockchain actually maps to many other transactions (for example, exchanges batch their outputs, so even though it appears as a single transaction, they could be paying hundreds of people at a time, likewise for lightning or other layers).
- Retric 5y ago
  Even the most generous interpretation of the lightning network doesn’t actually add enough transactions to get %1. In theory it could, but Bitcoin simply isn’t used for much beyond speculation right now.
floydnoel 5y ago
The absolute number of transactions is of little importance. Bitcoin moves around a billion+ dollars an hour. Ethereum is 1/10 of that. So Bitcoin is definitely #1 in terms of transacted value per day, which is the only important measure of adoption.
- Sargos 5y ago
  Not true. Ethereum moves about 10 billion a day while Bitcoin moves about 9 billion a day. https://money-movers.info/ https://money-movers.info/ This is just comparing the base assets, adding in stablecoins makes the gap even larger with Ethereum moving 27 billion and Bitcoin moving 9 billion.

sprafa 5y ago

Bitcoin will eventually fade away, since the only significant thing that's actually happening in crypto space is actually smart contracts, and BTC will never implement that. In 10 years it it will be a historical curiosity. Also - shitcoins? So DOT, ALGO are shitcoins? You seem out of the loop.

rawtxapp 5y ago
Smart contracts don't need to be implemented at the base layer, you can have other layers and protocols and still transact in Bitcoin. There is rsk, sovryn and rgb on lightning and you can still use Bitcoin with ethereum or other smart contract platforms.
- Sargos 5y ago
  All of those are custodial solutions which defeats the purpose of blockchains.
  - kevinak 5y ago
    RGB isn't custodial at all.
- sprafa 5y ago
  found the bitcoin maxi. It's amazing how all the "smart" people here in HN are consistently wrong on blockchain, and even the ones who are attuned to it are usually involved in BTC and defend it hysterically.

erdos4d 5y ago

This is only because crypto is still a curiosity. Once a coin gains enough mass adoption to actually function as digital cash by normal people, it will leave Bitcoin in the dust. My bet is on Monero for that, but whether I am right or not, I'm 100% certain that coin won't be Bitcoin.

cryptica 5y ago
I think this conclusion is correct. I can think of two reasons why no other token has been able to surpass Bitcoin: - Network effects arising as a result of having many crypto markets which use BTC as the base currency. This gives BTC a lot of exposure on trading platforms. BTC is therefore a gateway to the crypto ecosystem; kind of like a reserve currency. - Most big mainstream investors don't have any interest in advancing the field. Their main concern is preventing crypto from disrupting their existing corporate interests. They will buy a majority stake in a crypto and then encourage founders to waste time and resources... They want to create jobs to keep developers busy on useless activities; that way these developers are not competing with corporate interests. Also, because all these wasteful crypto projects occupy all the top rankings on coinmarketcap and occupy most investors' trading screens, it prevents smaller, more promising projects from getting any attention so it prevents the crypto industry from becoming disruptive. (Though at best this will probably only delay things by a decade or so until new exchanges start launching and start listing different non-mainstream tokens).
- bombcar 5y ago
  Much of the BTC as base currency isn’t actually BTC on the blockchain - but “BTC” held by the exchange and transferred between customers via a database and NOT on chain.
  - cryptica 5y ago
    I'm a blockchain developer and I wrote a DEX from scratch so I know exactly how that works :) It doesn't change the fundamentals.
redisman 5y ago