Alternatives to bitcoin

[JayJuanGee]

How long have you been using it, and which of the cryptos have you actually stored on it?

Do you have any other wallets that you have tried? What about exchanges, do you keep any cryptos on exchanges, otherwise from where do you get your crypto?

I don't have any cryptocurrency.

It certainly can make a difference if you actually attempt to put any of the cryptos to use and then on a personal level deciding whether to learn about one wallet or another and what is more or less convenient depending on how much of any of the particular cryptos you hold and how much risk you are willing to take.

Blockchain.info is good but it's not anonymous. A staff member doxxed one of their members bitcoin wallets over a dispute, so the true way to be anonymous with crptocurrency is to store the wallet on your computer and backup your wallet.

First, regarding blockchain.info as a wallet. I have some bitcoins there, and I think that it is pretty good as a wallet in terms of security and being available on the internet from anywhere in the world. I have never used it for any other kind of crypto, and I am not sure if it is capable of such.

Second, regarding anonymity, these tend to be questions of degree and from whom you want to be anonymous. Blockchain.info does allow you to make multiple addresses and there are developing more and more ways to remain anonymous, but since bitcoin is on a public ledger, there is likely less anonymity than what people used to believe to be possible and even practical a few years ago.

Third, your example seems to be talking about security rather than anonymity, and your example seems to demonstrate that it could be possible to have blockchain wallet's security breached.. does DDOS mean the target person could not access the wallet or that the target person lost funds?

fourth, your recommendation to use another wallet may be all fine and dandy in theory, but when you actually have coins, you could weigh the risks and convenience differently.. and sure guys may vary in their ideas about whether one method is preferable or not to their particular circumstances.

Where you get your bitcoins or crptocurrency depends on what country you come from.

Sure, I understand that, and part of the reason that I asked you was to attempt to hear about some of your personal experiences regarding various coins, and those kinds of experiences could be helpful to be or for other guys to consider.

 

[JayJuanGee]

Here's an article from today providing some description and consideration of the role of the DAO attacker.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@thecryptofiend/is-the-dao-hacker-a-white-hat

Sure, this is the attacker that sparked the Ethereum fork situation, and one of the problems with ETH, versus ETC, remains that employing the hardfork caused quite a bit of attention to the potential for centralization with Ethereum in that a fairly small committee (that may have not quite thought the matter through well enough in terms of long term ramifications) decided to treat ethereum like as if they were central bankers... so in that regard, ETC is an attempt to keep Ethereum more like bitcoin in terms of decentralization and immutability... which is likely going to continue to inspire a certain level of value that potentially could slowly migrate from ETH to ETC.. which may little by little cause the prices to migrate towards each other...

My understanding is that there are at least a couple of immediate measures of ETH versus ETC and that is price and hash power, and at the moment ETC has about 12% of the hashpower and the price of ETH - which is nail biting and something that will need to be monitored by those interested in this space.

To supplement my earlier post above, there are companies that are siding with ETC because they rely on a certain level of immutability, which seems to be a step towards avoiding some of the moral hazard of the ETH hardfork decision.

https://medium.com/@Stampery/why-stampery-supports-ethereum-classic-4c86ec7cca17#.8lxrgeid3

 

[JayJuanGee]

I have not bought any ETH, but I bought ETC (on bitfinex); however, I understand that recently, some folks had been buying ETH (I think on Coinbase), and they would receive both ETH and ETC, when they transferred their ETH to Poloniex - so maybe i got ripped off if there were better deals?

I don't really want to buy any ETH, but does anyone know exactly when the cut would have been to receive both - I thought that it would have been prior to the fork, but who knows? There could be various kinds of exploits, no? Maybe I should sell my ETC before I lose money?

 

[booshala]

Believe you're already past the cutoff for the 1:1 ETC/ETH payday. I transferred to Poloniex as well and decided to just leave the ETC in the exchange account for right now. I guess I could get some pocket money for it, but I'd rather just leave it and see how it pans out. ETH, I moved back to my Jaxx wallet.

 

[JayJuanGee]

Believe you're already past the cutoff for the 1:1 ETC/ETH payday.

Yes, my initial impression was that any ETH that a guy may have acquired prior to the hardfork from a couple of weeks ago would then be on both chains, ETH and ETC; however, if you purchased your ETH or ETC after the fork, then the respective purchases would only be on the chain respective to their fork.

Nonetheless, there has been some issues with some exchanges such as Coinbase choosing to only recognize one of the chains (ETH specifically and not ETC). I think Coinbase may stand out a bit more in this respect as compared to some other exchanges because their CEO Brian Armstrong has been so publicly vocal about a few things 1) pushing for a BTC hardfork with XT/Classic to increase the blocksize limit to 2mb 2) including ETH into their purchasing and exchange support, before adding other alt coins, including changing the name of their exchange to GDAX 3) not supporting ETC.

Anyhow, the publicity about folks seeming to take advantage of Coinbase's non-support for ETC by moving their coins to a location that supports both ETH and ETC (Poloniex specfically) was described as an exploit, but upon reflection I am not sure whether it was because quite a few exchanges (including BTC-e, Gemini, Uphold and likely some others) have not yet begun their support for ETC, even though they support ETH (yet maybe they have plans to begin supporting ETC in the future, I'm not sure).

I transferred to Poloniex as well and decided to just leave the ETC in the exchange account for right now.

What was your timing on this transfer to Poloniex, before or after the hardfork? did you transfer from your jaxx wallet or somewhere else?

So when your ETH arrived on Poloniex, you began to be able to see your coins for both?

I guess I could get some pocket money for it, but I'd rather just leave it and see how it pans out.

Yep.. At this point, it remains a bit unclear how this matter will play out, and/or how long it will take to sort out. In fact there is probably quite a bit more support in the ETC camp than the ETH core folks had calculated.

ETH, I moved back to my Jaxx wallet.

How long have you used Jaxx? how many kinds of coins you have on there? have you used other wallets and can make some comparisons? Jaxx is considered a wallet that you can use for bitcoin and ethereum anywhere that you can use a chrome browser? Is it easy to set up and to use, or is there a bit of a learning curve with that wallet?

 

[Deepdiver]

The Surefire Sign That a Digital Currency Boom Is About to Begin
BY TEEKA TIWARI, EDITOR, THE PALM BEACH LETTER (Bonner Network Newsletters)
Teeka Tiwari

There’s one surefire way to know when a particular asset or industry is ready to take off.

And that’s when institutional investors create an exchange-traded fund (ETF) to track it.

Like a mutual fund or index fund, an ETF is a way for investors to buy a basket of stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. by purchasing a single stock.

With more than $3 trillion in assets under management, ETFs are one of the most popular investment vehicles on the market.

Hundreds of new ETFs are launched each year. From just one in 1993, the ETF market has grown to more than 1,400 today. On an average day, ETFs make up about 25% of equity trading volume.

One reason ETFs have grown so popular is that they offer investors a low-cost way to diversify.

For example, if commercial property is hot, investors can buy a real estate ETF, which carries a basket of real estate companies… rather than buy a single real estate stock.

By spreading the investment dollars over multiple companies instead of one, ETFs can reduce the risk that comes from owning an individual company’s stock.

But I’m not writing about ETFs to recommend one to you. I like them for another reason...

They can be powerful indicators… Showing when particular assets or industries are about to break out.

The ETF That Spurred a Gold Rush

Take the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) ETF. The World Gold Council created it in 2004 to promote investment in the precious metal. At the time, there was only one gold ETF in existence… but it was listed in Australia.

When GLD was launched in the U.S. on Nov. 18, 2004, the price of gold was $442 per ounce. Today, it’s $1,330 per ounce... due in part to the surge of large pools of investor funds that flowed into GLD.

GLD is now the world’s largest private owner of bullion, buying an average of $30 million in gold per day. And as you can see in the chart below, the fund’s holdings closely mirror the price of actual gold.


In the three days after GLD launched, the fund hit $1 billion in assets. It hit $10 billion in just over two years. Today, it’s pooled $40 billion investment dollars.

But here’s the key thing about the launch of GLD most people don’t realize… It attracted thousands of new investors to the market.

An estimated 750,000 to 1 million investors bought into GLD who otherwise wouldn’t, according to the fund’s managers… And between 60% and 80% of them had never bought gold before.

You see, when GLD launched, pent-up investor demand for the metal erupted.

By creating the first quick and easy way for investors to buy into gold, GLD radically expanded participation in the gold market.

And that’s why I’m so excited today. Because we’re about to see something similar happen in a brand-new sector of the market: the digital currency sphere.

Digital Currencies Are About to
Get a Major Tailwind

As you may know, I’ve been bullish on cryptocurrencies for most of the year. I first told my readers about digital currencies in April 2016.

Since then, I’ve been pounding the table about them.

But I had no idea what would happen next...

In June, a team of venture capitalists filed a major proposal with the U.S. government.

They’re seeking to launch the first-ever ETF to offer exposure to digital currencies.

If approved, that pent-up demand will erupt and flood digital currencies with streams of new investor money. And with the new trading of these currencies on a daily basis, liquidity will explode.

Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of investors around the world waiting on the sidelines.

But they haven’t yet invested for one reason or another. (For instance, buying digital currencies is harder than investing in stocks, investors need to open up a digital wallet, they need a protected computer, they aren’t tech savvy enough, etc.)

With the new ETF, investing in digital currencies will become as simple as typing a ticker symbol into an online brokerage account.

Friends, we’re about to see the creation of an entirely new asset class. And most people are unaware of it.

Readers who have been following my recommendations since March are already up nearly 60% on our initial position… and this is just the beginning. Most of Wall Street hasn’t even woken up to digital currencies yet, but all that is about to change.

Now is the time to get in on the action…

I recommend holding a small portion of your assets in digital currencies.

Not only will they serve as a chaos hedge against negative interest rates and the War on Cash... But with the imminent launch of brand-new ETFs, we could see a great deal of capital gains, too.

Regards,

Teeka Tiwari
Editor, The Palm Beach Letter
P.S. The launch of these new ETFs is going to spark a boom in digital currencies. But if you wait until then to invest, you’ll miss the boat.

The key to making a windfall off this surefire surge is to invest in cryptocurrencies before the government approval deadline. That’s where the big gains will be made. For one digital currency, it could be as much as 200% in the next 12 to 18 months… and that’s my most conservative estimate.

 

[JayJuanGee]

The Surefire Sign That a Digital Currency Boom Is About to Begin
[edited out of article]

There could be some truth in what is said by the article that you had quoted, and my understanding is that there are a couple of ETF applications pending for Bitcoin and one application pending for ETH. At least one of the BTC ETFs could be approved as soon as within a month, but more likely, if approved would be by about the end of this year. And, the other BTC ETF could follow soon on the tracks of the earlier one.

With the whole current clusterfuck of ETH, I have my doubts about whether any kind of ETF would be approved for that digital asset in the near future.. All of these are certainly interesting and uncertain markets because digital assets are probably quite a bit different from the asset classes of earlier approved ETFs, so it would be quite transformational merely to find out that one of the digital currency ETFs had been approved.

I am getting the sense that the odds are greater that one of the digital assets ETFs will be approved within the coming 6 months rather than not, yet I have my questions about whether it would have any kind of meaningful directional impact on the current price - except the news of such. One of the problems and ambiguities of ETFs is that it has the potential to cause more fractional reserve type behaviors, which could potentially negatively offset some of the positive affects on digital asset prices.

 

[booshala]

JJG:

Jaxx is super easy to use and set up... in fact, almost too easy - for some reason unlike the Blockchain.info app that you suggested, I can't find out how to set up a PIN to access the app. There's a PIN prompt when I send BTC tor ETH elsewhere. As for the process, I bought ETH on Kraken before the hard fork happened and would transfer from the exchange to my Jaxx wallet. After hearing about the Poloniex automatic splitting, I transferred quickly there, got the ETC and then transferred the ETH back to Jaxx. Like you mentioned, have to keep ETC on the exchange account at Poloniex because there aren't any wallets I've found to support it.

 

[JayJuanGee]

JJG:

Jaxx is super easy to use and set up... in fact, almost too easy - for some reason unlike the Blockchain.info app that you suggested, I can't find out how to set up a PIN to access the app. There's a PIN prompt when I send BTC tor ETH elsewhere. As for the process, I bought ETH on Kraken before the hard fork happened and would transfer from the exchange to my Jaxx wallet. After hearing about the Poloniex automatic splitting, I transferred quickly there, got the ETC and then transferred the ETH back to Jaxx. Like you mentioned, have to keep ETC on the exchange account at Poloniex because there aren't any wallets I've found to support it.

Thank you for that explanation.

At some point, i may need to look into Jaxx as a potential storage location..

At some point, I may need to consider Kraken and/or Poloniex accounts too, but since I currently have 10 BTC related accounts, I am not necessarily inclined to just add without giving some considerations regarding whether I could be potentially advantaged by creating such accounts, versus how much time and and cumbersomeness to set up such accounts.

I agree that regarding ETC, there seems to be quite a bit of lacking of support that seems to be slowly changing in the direction of adding more ETC support (for example it took a little bit of time before Bitfinex actually added ETC), yet in the long term, we cannot be sure regarding some of those adoption and building developments.

One thing that I had read, which makes quite a bit of sense, is that some of the exchanges that fail and refuse to add ETC support (but had ETH support prior to the hardfork) are likely pocketing those ETC proceeds.... so there could almost be a legal (and of course moral) obligation for services to recognize ETC in the event that the service had recognized ETH prior to the ETH hardfork.

 

[JayJuanGee]

Currently a very negative article regarding Coinbase, and questions regarding its solvency. This kind of relates to one of my earlier points regarding how Coinbase and some other exchanges may have treated the ETH / ETC split.


https://bitflikz.com/blogs/news/cri...-from-bitflikz-gdax-coinbase-may-be-insolvent

 

[JayJuanGee]

There is also discussion of ETC hardforking in order to make a cleaner break from ETH.


https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/c...nt_replay_attacks_on/?st=iraj1ct3&sh=d1c05768

I am not sure about what the likelihood of such a hardfork for ETC... Some of this is difficult to get a guy's head around and then just never ending possibilities and developments.


And, the below article discusses upward price movement of ETC (at a time that ETH prices are coming down) Whether ETH/ETC reaches parity is still to be determined.

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/...g-surge-could-the-value-start-approaching-eth

 

[JayJuanGee]

There is also discussion of ETC hardforking in order to make a cleaner break from ETH.


https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/c...nt_replay_attacks_on/?st=iraj1ct3&sh=d1c05768

I am not sure about what the likelihood of such a hardfork for ETC... Some of this is difficult to get a guy's head around and then just never ending possibilities and developments.


And, the below article discusses upward price movement of ETC (at a time that ETH prices are coming down) Whether ETH/ETC reaches parity is still to be determined.

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/...g-surge-could-the-value-start-approaching-eth

Even though in the past several months, I had been reading quite a bit about the dynamics of ETH (especially the fiasco with the DAO and then with the decision to hardfork).

Nonetheless, I don't feel too experienced in my choice to buy ETC (after the hardfork), because as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have the general sense that both ETC and ETH are shit coins (for the most part, even though they do have utility, but ETH was largely pumped and potentially dumped).

In any regard, I was thinking that possibly the price of ETC could approach parity with ETH in the short term, but then I thought that the odds were kind of against ETC reaching parity with ETH, but really, who knows for sure?...

Today, I was thinking that maybe if ETC reaches 50% of the price of ETH, that could be a decent price to sell some of the ETC? Or maybe that is too greedy?

I'm kind of thinking this through as I type... and part of my stimulus for such thinking is that in the past few days ETC has gone from about 12% of the price of ETH to a bit more than 23% of the price of ETH, so ETC price seems to be moving in the right direction, at least at the moment for guys like me who bought ETC?

I understand the opposite, is happening, too... some folks are selling ETC and buying ETH (because they think that ETH is the more credible one), but that strategy seems contrary to the current price movement, which surely could reverse at any moment.

 

[Leo_Decashio]

Currently a very negative article regarding Coinbase, and questions regarding its solvency. This kind of relates to one of my earlier points regarding how Coinbase and some other exchanges may have treated the ETH / ETC split.


https://bitflikz.com/blogs/news/cri...-from-bitflikz-gdax-coinbase-may-be-insolvent

I did a google search to follow up on that article, and didn't find anything about Coinbase being insolvent except from that source. The article does make an interesting point about the validity of having 100% ETC on GDAX being in cold storage if people are able to make withdrawls (doesn't this require some amount of ETC in hot storage?), but again, I haven't seen anything else on the net with regards to the insolvency issue.

 

[JayJuanGee]

Currently a very negative article regarding Coinbase, and questions regarding its solvency. This kind of relates to one of my earlier points regarding how Coinbase and some other exchanges may have treated the ETH / ETC split.


https://bitflikz.com/blogs/news/cri...-from-bitflikz-gdax-coinbase-may-be-insolvent

I did a google search to follow up on that article, and didn't find anything about Coinbase being insolvent except from that source. The article does make an interesting point about the validity of having 100% ETC on GDAX being in cold storage if people are able to make withdrawls (doesn't this require some amount of ETC in hot storage?), but again, I haven't seen anything else on the net with regards to the insolvency issue.

I doubt that was the only article.

The weekend before the Bitfinex fiasco of August 2, there was all kinds of discussion on reddit and other locations regarding the solvency of Coinbase, and sure some of that discussion stemmed from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong engaging in various battles with the Bitcoin community and his various interjections in the blocksize limit debate and his wanting to endorse XT and Classic.. and thereafter his adoption of ETH trading, as a sort of continuing jab at Bitcoin core.

So in the end, maybe there can be some concessions that Coinbase's alledged demise has been exaggerated and political, but there are a lot of articles beyond the one that I cited in my earlier post. For starters, just look here (lots of articles July 30 through August 1):


https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=coinbase's insolvency

 

[Leo_Decashio]

Most of the google news articles seem to be linking to the same bitflikz article as their source. But, you have might have more skin in the game than me (i'm mostly in fiat at the moment), so there's that.

On a related subject, JayJuanGee, what do you think of Steemit? I love the idea- which as I understand it is people getting compensated in cryptocurrency for the content they post, which is a wonderful antidote to the walled garden approach of FB and TWTR. But it seems like it hasn't taken off, in the sense of having diverse content that people actually want to read and contribute towards?

 

[JayJuanGee]

Currently a very negative article regarding Coinbase, and questions regarding its solvency. This kind of relates to one of my earlier points regarding how Coinbase and some other exchanges may have treated the ETH / ETC split.


https://bitflikz.com/blogs/news/cri...-from-bitflikz-gdax-coinbase-may-be-insolvent

I did a google search to follow up on that article, and didn't find anything about Coinbase being insolvent except from that source. The article does make an interesting point about the validity of having 100% ETC on GDAX being in cold storage if people are able to make withdrawls (doesn't this require some amount of ETC in hot storage?), but again, I haven't seen anything else on the net with regards to the insolvency issue.

I doubt that was the only article.

The weekend before the Bitfinex fiasco of August 2, there was all kinds of discussion on reddit and other locations regarding the solvency of Coinbase, and sure some of that discussion stemmed from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong engaging in various battles with the Bitcoin community and his various interjections in the blocksize limit debate and his wanting to endorse XT and Classic.. and thereafter his adoption of ETH trading, as a sort of continuing jab at Bitcoin core.

So in the end, maybe there can be some concessions that Coinbase's alledged demise has been exaggerated and political, but there are a lot of articles beyond the one that I cited in my earlier post. For starters, just look here (lots of articles July 30 through August 1):


https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=coinbase's insolvency

I don't really follow the specifics of any alt coins; however, I get some exposure to some of the ideas and fundamentals of various alt coins through my study and my investment into bitcoin.

I consider large majority of the alt coins, including steemit, as pump and dumps, yet I am not attempting to discard their various technological innovations and their potential to contribute in a large number of ways to the crypto space, but nonetheless, I consider them all to be very risky in terms of long term investment, but of course if you can find various alt coins that are undervalued, you may be able to ride it during a period in which it has had an upsurge in pricing.

Surely steemit had recently experienced considerable pumping, and surely it could be pumped some more. I just have few ideas regarding any of the timing concerning when to get in or when to get out.

Currently, I have only been investing in ETC because I think that there is considerable potential that it could reach parity with ETH. I don't think that there is much fundamental value to either ETC or ETH because they could both be absorbed into BTC - however, I do think that there is going to be some ongoing battle between ETC and ETH in which they likely move towards parity - whether that is by ETC coming up or ETH going down or even whether it will happen at all remains a bit unclear to me.

Are you thinking about investing into Steemit?

Do you own any crypto's at all at this time?

Do you have other investments? stocks, bonds, 401ks or precious metals or real estate?

 

[Leo_Decashio]

Currently, I have only been investing in ETC because I think that there is considerable potential that it could reach parity with ETH. I don't think that there is much fundamental value to either ETC or ETH because they could both be absorbed into BTC - however, I do think that there is going to be some ongoing battle between ETC and ETH in which they likely move towards parity - whether that is by ETC coming up or ETH going down or even whether it will happen at all remains a bit unclear to me.

Are you thinking about investing into Steemit?

Do you own any crypto's at all at this time?

Do you have other investments? stocks, bonds, 401ks or precious metals or real estate?

I agree with you that Steemit may be a pump and dump at this time, so I'm not going to invest into it. I am interested in the concept of being paid for content I post on a decentralized social network, but it seems the quality of the content and topics on the Steemit network has a long ways to go.

I own a small amount of BTC. The rest of my investments consist of sweat equity in the projects I'm working on :wink:

Interesting thought on ETC/ETH being merged into BTC- how would this happen on a technical level? Or do you mean simply reaching parity with BTC's market cap?

 

[JayJuanGee]

Currently, I have only been investing in ETC because I think that there is considerable potential that it could reach parity with ETH. I don't think that there is much fundamental value to either ETC or ETH because they could both be absorbed into BTC - however, I do think that there is going to be some ongoing battle between ETC and ETH in which they likely move towards parity - whether that is by ETC coming up or ETH going down or even whether it will happen at all remains a bit unclear to me.

Are you thinking about investing into Steemit?

Do you own any crypto's at all at this time?

Do you have other investments? stocks, bonds, 401ks or precious metals or real estate?

I agree with you that Steemit may be a pump and dump at this time, so I'm not going to invest into it. I am interested in the concept of being paid for content I post on a decentralized social network, but it seems the quality of the content and topics on the Steemit network has a long ways to go.

Well, at least you have some ideas regarding the uses of Steemit, and likely that allows you to recognize when it may become a better buy value. Part of the problem with a lot of these various alts is that they may have a lot of decent technical aspects, but they may be weak on the monetary aspect or the security or the fact that they are kind of coming off as a kind of centralize ponzi scheme.

I own a small amount of BTC. The rest of my investments consist of sweat equity in the projects I'm working on :wink:

Sometimes it can take a while to build your various investment portfolio because, yeah, we gotta eat too, no? Since I am in my late 40s, I had quite a few years of various traditional investments. I started buying bitcoin in late 2013 in order to diversify a bit out of some of my traditional fiat connected investments. I bought a few alts in the beginning, just to experiment and to attempt to learn a bit, even though I considered bitcoin to be the most stable, promising and innovative of the cryptos. Part of bitcoin's appeal is the considerable networking effect and computing power securing it, so I appreciate some of the alts that will attempt to build upon bitcoin.

I have not really been too much into studying alts, even though I bought a few alt coins in late 2013. For me, they are good to monitor some of the innovations, but aI get a bit confused sometimes concerning the extent to which there is any monetary value or really meaningful innovations.

Interesting thought on ETC/ETH being merged into BTC- how would this happen on a technical level? Or do you mean simply reaching parity with BTC's market cap?

I am not exactly a technical person either, but my understanding is that there are a few innovations in bitcoin that would potentially allow additional building upon bitcoin and the incorporation of various side chains... in that regard, I am referring to segregated witness and rootstock. Accordingly, the network of bitcoin would continue to operate as the security layer, and off chain transactions would later be rectified with the bitcoin blockchain.. but the various systems, such as alt coins would work on a side-chain level. I am not sure exactly how these kinds of innovations would affect either the monetary value of bitcoin or the various other coins that may be built with such linkings - likely it would vary from case to case and partially based on the utility of whatever service is being conducted by such alt coins.

Earlier, when I mentioned parity, I have the inclination that ETC has a decent potential to reach parity with ETH - even though it could take a year or longer to get to that point.

Regarding market cap parity, I have no real long term insights whether other coins will catch up to bitcoin or surpass bitcoin or not, and I don't really believe that it is necessary that other coins catch up to bitcoin in order for them to be successful, and I doubt that bitcoin has failed in any kind of meaningful way if other coins might surpass it's market cap.

I personally, believe that bitcoin has the best potential out of all of the cryptos to have and maintain a true and meaningful market cap that is higher than all of the other alt coins, but I also recognize that while bitcoin remains fairly small in its market cap (less than 10 billion), there could be some efforts by rich folks, institutions (such as finance institutions) or even governments to pump various other alt coins or alt blockchains in order to attempt to cause negative impressions regarding bitcoin, so I believe that we should not necessarily consider bitcoin's current or future success merely on the measurement of it's market cap or changes in its market cap relative to other coins. All of these measurements remain important as long as we consider them in their proper context, and with bitcoin the proper context remains its truly innovative power in terms of decentralized censorship resistance and immutability, which currently no other coin (whether fiat related or an alt coin) comes close to such levels of innovation.

 

[JayJuanGee]

For anyone still following the ETH/ETC debacle, the below linked article provides some additional perspective.. and some motivations of various inside groups.


https://blog.bity.com/2016/08/13/the-white-hats-and-dao-wars-behind-the-scenes/

 

[JayJuanGee]

I stumbled across the below linked interesting monero article:

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/19/upcoming-monero-hard-fork-lays-foundation-complete-anonymity/

Even though I believe that bitcoin is going to absorb a lot of the innovations of various alt cryptos, to the extent that some of the features prove to be useful into the future, it is interesting to see that some coins are taking fairly serious approaches to anonymity - whether those approaches cause them to be targeted by various governments could be another story - but likely better to have coins with smaller market caps to be making such innovations - and possibly could disperse the extent to which any government or financial institution considers those technologies as threats.

Dash also seems to be fairly heavy on anonymity, but there are quite a few more scam accusations directed towards Dash (as compared with Monero), and on a personal level I get the sense that some of the Dash leaders are more in the scamming and marketing approach - beyond the level of acceptability for me at this time. By the way, even though I appreciate some of these kinds of innovations, including the announced one from Monero, I don't buy Monero, so far, either.