There are already quite a few. NameCoin, PPCoin, DevCoin, IxCoin, the list goes on. The biggest (second only to bitcoin) is LiteCoin. Very similar to bitcoin b

There are already quite a few. NameCoin, PPCoin, DevCoin, IxCoin, the list goes on. The biggest (second only to bitcoin) is LiteCoin. Very similar to bitcoin but with faster transactions, and it uses a different algorithm. Using Scrypt instead of SHA-256 makes it much harder to get a fast FPGA or ASIC to mine quickly. Even top graphics cards are no more than 10-20x faster than CPUs. It's risen in price ridiculously recently, going from 7 cents to 6 dollars, now hovering around 4. People who were mining or bought in around the 7 cent mark have made quite a lot. There was no premining thought which is interesting, and I think has helped raise confidence (pre-mining is where the designers of the currency mine on their own before anyone else gets on the network, so it's a concern that they will dump vast amounts at some point and crash the price). I think having more currencies might actually improve confidence, as there are a few ways of looking at it: 1) Lots popping up, hmm, bitcoin isn't special so SELL! 2) Lots popping up and falling, hmm, bitcoin looks quite stable comparatively, BUY! 3) Another few stable ones appearing, hmm, crypto-currencies looks like quite a normal idea, BUY! Could go any way, could all collapse or spike. Maybe $125 is low for bitcoin, and we'll be here thinking "Why didn't I buy in?" or it'll collapse, nobody will think it's worth mining and the network will fall apart. Or it'll remain the same. All I know is I'm currently making some money to keep my flat warm, and that it's not worth putting in anything I can't afford to lose. Edit - Formatting.