3 ms·

Look at the front page of https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ There are 10114 different coins listed. Even if cryptos will deliver on the pro

by nikanj 4y ago

Look at the front page of https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ There are 10114 different coins listed. Even if cryptos will deliver on the promises of the fully decentralized future, are we going to need that many different instruments? Today practically all merchants takes Visa and Mastercard. Some even take Amex, and a minuscule amount take BTC. Does anyone take a coin from page 73 of coinmarketcap.com?

jabbany 4y ago
To be fair a lot of those are specialty tokens for specific services/uses. Overall, the crypto situation can be thought of as more similar to, say, "gift cards" issued by companies. You could say the same thing about a $5 Starbucks gift card --- you'd be hard pressed to spend it directly against any other merchant, but you could feasibly try to sell it for < $5 real dollars and if Starbucks went under, it would be worthless.
- closewith 4y ago
  > To be fair a lot of those are specialty tokens for specific services/uses. Is that true, or were they created as speculative instruments and are doomed to failure in the long run?
  - junofan 4y ago
    Some of them give you discounts and perks and stuff. There’s real value. Many of the legit ones are created more as a way to bootstrap network effects by giving out free stuff to early adopters.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
>There are 10114 different coins listed. And at least 10110 are shitcoins. We're now dealing with 2nd order memecoins. Dogecoins were the original memecoin but now we have Shiba Inu coins. Is there really any reason for anything other than BTC, ETH, and maybe XRP to exist at this point? Maybe XMR since it fulfills the original intent of privacy and anonymity, if not for the fact that governments are trying to stamp it out most exchanges don't want to touch it.

3 ms·

Look at the front page of https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ There are 10114 different coins listed. Even if cryptos will deliver on the pro

by nikanj 4y ago

jabbany 4y ago
To be fair a lot of those are specialty tokens for specific services/uses. Overall, the crypto situation can be thought of as more similar to, say, "gift cards" issued by companies. You could say the same thing about a $5 Starbucks gift card --- you'd be hard pressed to spend it directly against any other merchant, but you could feasibly try to sell it for < $5 real dollars and if Starbucks went under, it would be worthless.
- closewith 4y ago
  > To be fair a lot of those are specialty tokens for specific services/uses. Is that true, or were they created as speculative instruments and are doomed to failure in the long run?
  - junofan 4y ago
    Some of them give you discounts and perks and stuff. There’s real value. Many of the legit ones are created more as a way to bootstrap network effects by giving out free stuff to early adopters.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
>There are 10114 different coins listed. And at least 10110 are shitcoins. We're now dealing with 2nd order memecoins. Dogecoins were the original memecoin but now we have Shiba Inu coins. Is there really any reason for anything other than BTC, ETH, and maybe XRP to exist at this point? Maybe XMR since it fulfills the original intent of privacy and anonymity, if not for the fact that governments are trying to stamp it out most exchanges don't want to touch it.