The State Of The Altcoins

The State Of The Altcoins

Altcoins are chugging along, albeit at a slower than expected rate as the year approaches its’ end.

It appears that some of the enthusiasm for alternative cryptocurrency has evaporated.

Altcoins Are Speeding Into The Future

After a year of failure, scams, and miscellaneous disappointments this should come as no surprise to any apt observers.

Cryptocurrency is not readily established and known among the multitudes. Although there are many advantages to crypto, there’s no guarantee that this movement will survive long enough to establish itself with a mainstream audience, especially if things continue as they have been.

In the last several months the complete stagnation of the industry has been felt. There are very few new participants. At the same time many once-gung-ho enthusiasts have left the scene forever due to their disgust at common practices. Contraction of the potential user-base is a surefire sign of likely disaster, yet it continues to be ignored by those who view the sector as fertile ‘get rich quick‘ territory.

Without ‘new blood‘ any industry will eventually wither and blow away. Without the recruitment of new people to crypto, this one will be no different.

Considering how many truly disappointing cryptocoins were introduced this year, it seems hard to believe that positive word of mouth is going to help spread the message of cryptocurrency. In fact, people are much less likely to promote crypto after they’ve tasted the bitter defeat of being scammed. Even those who haven’t been outright scammed often end up holding numerous coins that failed to accomplish anything of value, rendering their investment worthless. Why would these people recommend crypto-investing to others?

Worse, there’s still a major lack of acceptance for almost all altcoins. This glaring and continued lack of adoption is so pronounced it’s hard to believe that most coin teams are actually doing any promotions at all.

When new investors purchase cryptocoins they are likely hoping to get in on the early stages of mass adoption. This mirrors what happened to early investors of Bitcoin, many of whom became wealthy with small investments. However, the difference between an altcoin and Bitcoin should be obvious. Bitcoin was the first of its kind. Altcoins are generally minor variations on a persistent theme. The chance of lighting striking twice actually diminishes every time a new coin is launched!

The dream of getting rich for a small investment means altcoins end up being marketed to desperate people who will quit in despair after their few pennies have been pilfered. Financial products need to be marketed to financially savvy people for the simple reason that they’re the ones who have the money.

Also important is the birth of enough businesses to support growth in the sector. Without too many concrete examples of successful startups, others may not follow as quickly.

None of these obstacles mentioned are insurmountable. However, they have to be addressed. Marketing new cryptocoins to the same old dwindling ‘crowd‘ of enthusiasts is not going to generate enough volume or interest for good things to happen. With time running out on the year, the fate of a poor month could already be sealed. The last quarter of 2014 has been a rough one and the following few weeks could easily follow suit.

Thanks for stopping by and reading! If you have any comments, please add them.

  • Jean Genie

    Good article, but I don’t share your despondency about the future of crypto for the following reasons.

    Bitcoin was a new innovation that brought decentralisation to the world, and that technology is the basis for new innovations that are building on it’s revolutionary foundation. There are at least three examples of new innovations that are worth noting in my view.

    The first is the introduction of the SuperNet. This initiative brings together cryptos that offer technologies which bring something new to the table under the one umbrella. “SuperNET is to a cryptocurrency what the internet is to a website.” Examples are Next (NXT) the highway that the SuperNet will run on; BitcoinDark (BTCD) which offers completely anonymous proof of stake, Vericoin (VRC), Boolberry (BBR) providing stronger privacy technologies; and Opal (OPAL) offering stealth addresses via their ‘Opal Drive’ technology.

    From the website http://www.supernet.org/ “The suite of technologies popularly known as cryptocurrencies offer significant advantages over fiat currency, including low transaction costs, speed and lack of interference from centralized authorities such as governments, banks and payment processors.”

    The second innovation is the MaidSafe project. See http://maidsafe.net/ This is completely changing the way the entire Internet works. This offers true Privacy, Freedom and Security for everything we do on the Internet. This new technology has been eight years in development (started before Bitcoin) and is only now being introduced to the mainstream.

    These guys really are creating a whole new Internet making it completely decentralised. If you’re looking for Bitcoin MkII then this is it in my humble opinion. Right now you can buy into the MaidSafe initiative by investing in the future of the Internet by purchasing MaidSafeCoin (MAID) on Poloniex for example. MaidSafeCoin will later become Safecoin, which I believe will be converted on a 1:1 basis.

    The third initiative I want to mention is Bitshares from the team at Invictus Innovations. See http://bitshares.org/

    “Bitshares.org is an organization of businesses, decentralized companies, and individuals with a common interest in finding truly free market solutions.”

    Finally, having been involved in Bitcoin since very close to the beginning I have watched the whole cryptocurrency thing evolve, and whereas it does appear to be in the doldrums at the moment, there is one thing I am sure of. That is that decentralised cryptocurrency is here to stay. Personally, I have already invested in all three of the technologies listed above because these initiatives are examples of where the future of the Internet lies, as well as how we transact in our society moving forward.

    That’s because the writing is on the wall for fiat currency and it’s only a matter of when, not if, when fiat will be confined to the annuls of history.