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This has been predicted by Ethereum's founder (and others, I'm sure). There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future. Any company could launch its own cry

This has been predicted by Ethereum's founder (and others, I'm sure). There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future. Any company could launch its own crypto-coin, as some sort of "shares" from the company, and a way to fund the company as some sort of mini-IPO. Think of it like Kickstarter for crowdfunding, but you'd actually own part of the company by buying their coins, and your coins will grow in value as the company's value grows. You could also easily sell those coins back into other currencies whenever you want. Of course, this would be much easier if all of these millions of coins would be built on top of a crypto-coin platform, where you could also have P2P exchanges that can exchange these currencies much more easily and securely than a centralized exchange can. Things could get easier still for doing this, if companies just become Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. That's basically what Ethereum is trying to achieve, among other things. http://www.coindesk.com/ethererum-launches-cryptocurrency-2-0-network/ http://www.coindesk.com/ethererum-launches-cryptocurrency-2-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dpjN3Mwps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dpjN3Mwps

timje1 13y ago
Clearly the currency of the future will be crypto-currencies. I'll buy your hat for 150 crypto-currencies.
jabgrabdthrow 13y ago
Going even further, a cryptocurrency could be like shares in a company which can earn profit by performing services that couldn't be done except by a distributed autonomous entity. The founder of Ethereum used to be a founder at Invictus, a company with several DACs in the pipeline (check out http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php). He was asked to resign for mysterious reasons.
nly 13y ago
> There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future This doesn't make sense. If everyone had their own altcoin, even if they all used Scrypt, nobody would be secure because a 50% attack on your personal blockchain would be trivial. Bitcoins security relies solely on it being one of few significant coins of its kind. In any case, Bitcoin is huge because its decentralised and nobody has to make decisions. If everyone had to decide what chains to trust then you may as well switch to a superior cryptographic protocol that allows you to mint your own coin without a blockchain. These exist, there's just no incentive for them inside the traditional banking system (too anonymous), or indeed on the inter-personal micro scale (too inconvenient). Coloured coins make sense, but that's not really the same thing.
- exelius 13y ago
  So a form of arbitrage against Bitcoin may be to create your own cryptocurrency, mint a few million of them for yourself, hype it on HN, then cash out and profit? Sounds like a classic pump-and-dump junk bond scam, to me.
  - zevyoura 13y ago
    This is called premining and it's a common accusation towards new altcoins.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    The alt-coin mini-bubble of November '13 started a flood of precisely this activity. It existed before, but it really took off then. I'm reasonably sure dogecoin started out that way, but somehow took on a life of its own. I'm also pretty sure the November bubble was just a taste of an altcoin bubble explosion to come.
- ds0dsf0df0fsd 13y ago
  I agree, it's a stupid idea to create millions of altcoins. However, it's possible to do the same idea within Bitcoin itself. See Mastercoin, and in the future 'colored coins'. Currencies within currencies, a bit like how the Fed is the world reserve.
- penguindev 13y ago
  > Bitcoins security relies solely on it being one of few significant coins of its kind. So there's no technical security at all then, just the hope that hash power won't switch away to a new currency (which they have incentive to do - get in on the ground floor and cash out, as another poster said) It's all 'trust'. And a guaranteed cartel structure - the rich / powerful control 50% of the hashing power anyway. Pump and dump dreams indeed.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    which they have incentive to do - get in on the ground floor and cash out So they have savings in Bitcoin, plus an income in the form of mining fees, and they have an incentive to destroy those savings and income because they can invest instead in a completely new coin, of which 99%+ fail without ever getting anywhere? That makes no sense.
blueintegral 13y ago
Ha, company crypto-scrip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip

timje1 13y ago

Clearly the currency of the future will be crypto-currencies. I'll buy your hat for 150 crypto-currencies.

jabgrabdthrow 13y ago

Going even further, a cryptocurrency could be like shares in a company which can earn profit by performing services that couldn't be done except by a distributed autonomous entity. The founder of Ethereum used to be a founder at Invictus, a company with several DACs in the pipeline (check out http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php). He was asked to resign for mysterious reasons.

nly 13y ago

> There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future This doesn't make sense. If everyone had their own altcoin, even if they all used Scrypt, nobody would be secure because a 50% attack on your personal blockchain would be trivial. Bitcoins security relies solely on it being one of few significant coins of its kind. In any case, Bitcoin is huge because its decentralised and nobody has to make decisions. If everyone had to decide what chains to trust then you may as well switch to a superior cryptographic protocol that allows you to mint your own coin without a blockchain. These exist, there's just no incentive for them inside the traditional banking system (too anonymous), or indeed on the inter-personal micro scale (too inconvenient). Coloured coins make sense, but that's not really the same thing.

exelius 13y ago
So a form of arbitrage against Bitcoin may be to create your own cryptocurrency, mint a few million of them for yourself, hype it on HN, then cash out and profit? Sounds like a classic pump-and-dump junk bond scam, to me.
- zevyoura 13y ago
  This is called premining and it's a common accusation towards new altcoins.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  The alt-coin mini-bubble of November '13 started a flood of precisely this activity. It existed before, but it really took off then. I'm reasonably sure dogecoin started out that way, but somehow took on a life of its own. I'm also pretty sure the November bubble was just a taste of an altcoin bubble explosion to come.
ds0dsf0df0fsd 13y ago
I agree, it's a stupid idea to create millions of altcoins. However, it's possible to do the same idea within Bitcoin itself. See Mastercoin, and in the future 'colored coins'. Currencies within currencies, a bit like how the Fed is the world reserve.
penguindev 13y ago
> Bitcoins security relies solely on it being one of few significant coins of its kind. So there's no technical security at all then, just the hope that hash power won't switch away to a new currency (which they have incentive to do - get in on the ground floor and cash out, as another poster said) It's all 'trust'. And a guaranteed cartel structure - the rich / powerful control 50% of the hashing power anyway. Pump and dump dreams indeed.
- icebraining 13y ago
  which they have incentive to do - get in on the ground floor and cash out So they have savings in Bitcoin, plus an income in the form of mining fees, and they have an incentive to destroy those savings and income because they can invest instead in a completely new coin, of which 99%+ fail without ever getting anywhere? That makes no sense.

blueintegral 13y ago

Ha, company crypto-scrip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip