What's to stop competing coins \ stacker news ~bitcoin

1431 sats \ 63 comments \ @WetBandit 24 Mar bitcoin_beginners

I'm sure you have all thought of this before but I haven't. If Bitcoin is so great what's to stop a different Satoshi Angel from immaculate conception of a similar idea. Let's call it Bytecoin. Let's say Bytecoin drops next year and in 10 years is ifinirly more popular and more utilized than Bitcoin. Your Bitcoin still has value but but will h less demand for Bitcoin and more for Bytecoin it not worth as much anymore. Would it really be that difficult to copy the Bitcoin idea? It seems like real success would be whatever coin is adopted more widely. Thoughts?

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341 sats \ 15 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 24 Mar

Simple answer is nothing is stopping this from happening. However, people severely under estimate the first mover advantage of BTC. The idea that there is no figure head in charge, its true decentralization. The creator has been absent and hasn't touched its fortune in over a decade. There is security in that, which given how all other alt-coins have turned out it would be extremely difficult for people to put trust and belief in this new coin. Especially after all the capital and investments that have been made into BTC. I believe there is no way an anon creator would ever be trusted today.

also, Bytecoin has existed since 2014.

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bytecoin

31 sats \ 9 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

HA! Of course it has. You make some good points. Thanks for your reply.

76 sats \ 8 replies \ @Undisciplined 24 Mar

This question was what kept me from getting into bitcoin until somewhat recently. First mover advantage allowed bitcoin to build network effects that make it much more valuable than a new clone would be.

At this point, the new coin would have to have major advantages that bitcoin is unable to incorporate.

21 sats \ 7 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Gotcha. That makes sense. Luckily it didn't keep me from getting in but it has started to worry me a bit the more I think on things.

54 sats \ 6 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 24 Mar

It prevented me from solely accumulating BTC until it clicked. Sold all the alts and haven't touched them since.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

I still have some alts but plan to sell them after the next pump.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 24 Mar

To each their own, I wish you best of luck. Just know it may never happen, I recall 2018/2019 winter where all the coins (Dash/LTC/Zcash and many more) all bled and never recovered both in USD terms and have lost dramatically against BTC. Even ETH hasn't kept pace. Alts tend to syphon users BTC away and create bag holders.

I'm not going to chastise you like others here may, I don't know your holdings/goals, but time spent around this industry tends to bring people back to the king.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Well I appreciate you not chastising me. I do understand it's a risk but one I'm comfortable with.

reply on another page

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @030a29f333 24 Mar

No guarantee those alts outperform bitcoin, or that you'll time the trade right if they do :)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

That's true but I'd say there's not much guarantee on anything.

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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @DiedOnTitan 24 Mar

I heard Bytecoin is 8 times better. 😂

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

🤣

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 24 Mar

First mover advantage is key. Everything after bitcoin has come into existence in a world where Bitcoin exists. Bitcoin didn't suffer from this same disadvantage.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denationalized 24 Mar

Especially after all the capital and investments that have been made into BTC. I believe there is no way an anon creator would ever be trusted today.

Satoshi was not blindly trusted, people read the code themselves and decided to run it. If a new anon creator offers something interesting, especially if that be tech orders of magnitude better than Bitcoin while being just and decentralized, people will adopt that tech, especially if they could not incorporate such tech within Bitcoin.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Interesting. Okay, I'm going to have to do some more research I guess.

228 sats \ 1 reply \ @TwoLargePizzas 25 Mar

A few things to consider...

Bitcoin is not just software. It's a massive network of nodes, miners and people who currently hold their wealth and believe in it. That's incredibly difficult to copy.
Everything is a trade off. If someone figured out how to make a "better" Bitcoin what that really means is they are making different trade offs. This is the famous scalability vs security vs decentralization trilemma. Changing one impacts the others.
If there really is some undiscovered innovation that could be changed at the software level what stops it being implemented in Bitcoin?

The last thing I will say is that we don't know for sure what the market will value in the future. Is it possible that in 50 years from now governments stop printing money, become completely honest, transparent, trustworthy and friendly? In that world, Bitcoin wouldn't be as valuable.

It seems like real success would be whatever coin is adopted more widely.

Bitcoin is already successful. Is it adopted more widely than the US dollar? Obviously not. Adoption is only one metric to measure success. Real success is simply solving real problems and I would argue Bitcoin is already doing that quite well.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 30 Mar

Bitcoin is not just software. It's a massive network of nodes, miners and people who currently hold their wealth and believe in it. That's incredibly difficult to copy.

Well said.

359 sats \ 9 replies \ @elvismercury 24 Mar

It's a beginner question, but it's a great and important question, and honestly, most people probably couldn't give good answers to it.

If Bitcoin is so great what's to stop a different Satoshi Angel from immaculate conception of a similar idea.

Nothing stops a different Satoshi from doing that.

Would it really be that difficult to copy the Bitcoin idea?

No, it would be trivial.

It seems like real success would be whatever coin is adopted more widely.

Correct.

Now here's your homework. Which coin would be adopted more widely, and why?

Full disclosure: you can answer this question in a sentence. You can also spend five years unpacking that sentence.

249 sats \ 6 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Well, it's nice to hear my brain is on the right track at least. I guess my immediate answer would be a government token. But that definitely would not be decentralized or transparent so I guess that's a whole different thing all together. I'm guessing that's not far off anyway. I also think 85% of the population lives it's life of group think and acceptance. I think it would take a respected public figure to push adoption of a new coin. We've already seen Elon push shitcoins and demand go up in the short term. I don't have a good answer yet. The internet has changed so much about how society trusts and functions as a whole. There's no Walter Cronkite anymore and I don't think there's any figure like that to push mass adoption and have the masses willing to accept it; at least not right now.

110 sats \ 3 replies \ @Enemy_of_the_state 24 Mar

Mass adoption of something does not make it valuable. The US dollar has mass adoption already, yet has lost 98% of its value even while going from the currency of a single country, to the worlds currency, in that time period.

A government shitcoin will have the exact same fate.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

I agree.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denationalized 24 Mar

Mass adoption of something does not make it valuable. The US dollar has mass adoption already, yet has lost 98% of its value even while going from the currency of a single country, to the worlds currency, in that time period.

I disagree. Adoption does make money valuable. The dollar has lost only 98% of its value - and this is one of the reasons why it is the dollar that was adopted during that period and not scamcoins like peso, bolivar, naira, lira, etc. Those other shitcoins have devalued more than the dollar.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

I think the adoption gives it utility among the people which makes it most valuable.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 24 Mar

Keep digging. When you get to the bottom you'll deeply understand bitcoin.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Will do. Thank you!

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 24 Mar

Be careful with shitcoiners pretending to be "beginners"... they just want to create noise.

109 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Okay Darth.

228 sats \ 1 reply \ @m00ninite 25 Mar

First mover advantage is an interesting point, but in my mind, nothing after bitcoin can be as "fair" as bitcoin. Think of it, now that we know cryptocurriencies work, they're assigned a value right out the gate. There are speculators and premines.. Every project is tainted by the promise of making big bucks.

When bitcoin was released, it was a toy. It didn't even have a real price until much later, and even then, people had no idea if it would "work" long-term.

This fairness needs to be intact for mass adoption. How many people really want to buy something that the owner premined 60% of the supply of, and effectively has all the control?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 30 Mar

This is one of the most difficult things to get, or at least it was for me. The idea of coin distribution seems so trivial; and yet it can probably never happen again in a reasonable way, for the reasons you mentioned. Really hard for new people to understand the magnitude of that truth.

110 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Bytecoin it was just my made up example. I did not realize it was a real thing.

131 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 24 Mar

Nothing is stopping anyone from spinning up a new network, nothing is stopping anyone from forking Bitcoin and airdropping people the new coin.

But that doesn't mean they can transfer the user base, the various nodes, apps, wallets and service providers, bitcoin has a network effect, which is pretty hard to break network effect even if its rubbish.

Look at all the issues people have with big tech like Google, Facebook etc, yet the network effect continues on, despite them diluting the product over time. Now imagine how sticky a network is when its rewarding people and has a continued track record.

In theory a network could come along and become more distributed than Bitcoin sure, but theory is one thing, practice is another and its highly unlikley. In theory there could be a new internet, faster, and better but we've already sunk so much time, effort and infrastructure into the current system that migrating away would be near impossible.

If networks want to compete against Bitcoin, thats all good and well, but if Bitcoin keeps demonitising other networks, whats keeping people from moving to the strongest network?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

👍

54 sats \ 0 replies \ @denationalized 24 Mar

Would it really be that difficult to copy the Bitcoin idea?

Just to copy Bitcoin it is trivial, you can do it yourself with git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git . To convince developers to contribute to it and to maintain such a fork you would need to rewrite it, or write an entirely new protocol from scratch, so that it be way better than Bitcoin. I mean orders of magnitude better.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @ZezzebbulTheMysterious 24 Mar

There literally was a shitcoin clone of BTC called bytecoin. The idea was it was a “fair launch”. Scam.

Then there was the precursor to XMR, bytecoin. This bytecoin was a scam with a deliberately restricted miner. Also, when the low order generator bug was responsibly disclose , it was exploited by a disclosee. Iirc the exchanges took the L. It’s mostly all delisted now.

there is no second or even 8x best.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Thank you for the history lesson. I did not know that.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 24 Mar

If you look at the power outlet in your house, you’ll get it. It’s a really old technology, but a new option would need to provide a 10x improvement to over take it. So 1st mover wins!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

👍

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @frostdragon 24 Mar

This sums it up pretty succinctly: https://youtube.com/shorts/4r3G4hYt3FQ?si=LnciQpxMw1mAZseM

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Thanks.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 24 Mar

There are many that have tried to copy or make a similar one. They are called SHITCOINS. I remember when ripple was new, then stellar. I believe both of them have had scandals. The heads reaping profit (pump amd dump) and then making them stagnate for a long time. I cant even keep track of how many coins have come and gone since. Take that with a grain of salt amd ponder why..

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 24 Mar

First of all Bytecoin has been in existence since 2014.

There's nothing that's stopping or an obstacle to making an Altcoin a.k.a. shitcoin a successful one.

You're true that the most widely adopted coin would be the most successful.

But, within last 15 years, no coin has even come closer to boasting same merits as Bitcoin already have.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 24 Mar

My introduction to bitcoin was Silk Road in 2012.

Trust cash, Bit instant and Mt Gox

I started my bitcoin education after

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Sounds like you've been at this for a while.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 24 Mar

Sort of but not really

New to lightning and liquid

I’m not a programmer or miner.

Learning is never ending depending on how deep you want to immerse yourself

0 sats \ 12 replies \ @DarthCoin 24 Mar

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Thank your for your valuable contribution to the conversation.

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @DarthCoin 24 Mar

Somebody that want to learn about Bitcoin, doesn't come and first post is about how to change Bitcoin or create another shitcoin... So you literally show us that you have no interest in learning Bitcoin. I am getting tired of all these shitcoineries.

20 sats \ 9 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Lol. You sound a little cynical. Someone actually pointed me to your posts about Bitcoin so I am hoping to learn from you.

21 sats \ 6 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 24 Mar

Darth is a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind of person. Darth has created lots of educational content, but will certainly make you feel foolish about asking a question, as if you were supposed to know Darth's substack existed by default.

I appreciate all the thoughts and posts, and I believe Darth is more intelligent than most, but can also be quite abrasive to new people who are interested in learning.

I think people should interpret your question as you wanting to understand truly what differentiates BTC in an ever expanding shitcoins universe. He interprets it as pure shitcoinery. His intentionality is good (wants you to be BTC maxi) but he forgets the "love" part of tough love.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 24 Mar

Yes is true what you said about my reaction. The thing is newbies don't have to know my guides, I do not pretend them that. All newbies if they want to start with bitcoin should read the damn whitepaper. Are just 9 pages, no more no less. After that is simple:

Only with these 2 page is a huge start that could avoid all this noise with comparing bitcoin with other crap. Is WASTING TIME, for us and for them, that we still have therse endless useless discussions about shitcoineries in 2024, AFTER 14 years of Bitcoin existence!

I will repeat: WE ARE WASTING TIME !

After that, if they really want to go deeper into the rabbit hole, go to my guides.

35 sats \ 0 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 24 Mar

I don't mean this in a rude way, but if you feel it's a waste of time, then don't waste your time participating. There will be and have been others defending from shitcoinery. This question wasn't about a new person wanting to change BTC or copy it, but instead understand what makes it different.

I think we just have differences of opinions when it comes to education and learning.

If learning is a lifelong endeavor, educating others should be too. Sure everyone can read content posted, but it can be difficult to interpret technical/economic concepts important to BTC at the start. Doesn't help that most people's first intro is via shitcoins casinos like Binance/Coinbase via phone apps where everything is pushed on users. Totally understandable how people end up on the shitcoins train before BTC. Sometimes it's easier to learn via conversations with others and different explanations click with different people.

I just don't think educating someone is a waste of time until they prove it to be.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Darth I think your time may be more valuable than to even be replying to these posts! Thank you for taking the time.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @WetBandit OP 24 Mar

Guess I should have been Luke Skywalker instead of Marv. Honestly, I was just thinking worst case scenario, how could me putting my current funds into this thing potentially screw me over in the long run. I just heard the term No KYC a couple of days ago and realized I have a lot to learn.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 24 Mar

NEVER put your money into something you do not understand. First you read. There are tons of documentation out there. Then when you really understand what is Bitcoin, start buying. Then learn more, how to use it, how to improve your knowledge.

Here I explain it, step by step: https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/5-stages-became-bitcoiner

That's why we have nowadays so many shitcoins and shitcoiners... because they just jump into "investing" and not reading.