OK, I'm prepared to hear a lot of bitching and moaning from the Bitcoin bigots on this article, but it's time someone told the truth about all these coins that people seem to have a religious attachment to. It's not just Bitcoin, there are loads of other coins as well that people just love for no other reason then it's become like their family pet.
Bitcoin WAS the first
OK, the Bitcoin concept was brilliant and admittedly there were a load of people that we need to be thankful to for sticking it out with Bitcoin to get the whole cryptocurrency paradigm cemented in the global consciousness. If it wasn't for them, there would be no new revolution in value creation and transfer outside of the bounds of our otherwise tightly owned and controlled global system. That being said, in "coin-years" Bitcoin is already geriatric. Performance is a total disaster. The Bitcoin Reformation is well underway with the big "fork" question. Security is far inferior to new coins. So why do so many people cling to it like it's some ancient family heirloom that nobody could ever part with. One word.. "religion".
I won't get all Freudian on you in this article, but this religious attachment to things like Bitcoin is a form of sentimental hogwash bordering on a mental disorder. The real utility / value of a cryptocurrency, a blockchain technology, or any other technology is the number and complexity of problems it solves and how broadly and sustainably these solutions can be applied. Applying this to the crypto market, most of the coins that have already jumped up to massive valuations have been made obsolete with new technology. Take the example of Graphene, the platform that Steem, Bitshares, and Peerplay are built on. It can process transactions at over 3,000/second. Etherium can manage 25 transactions/second if you're lucky. Etherium came out in 2014, Bitcoin came out in 2009. This is how fast these technologies age. Etherium will survive much longer in any case simply because so many people are building new solutions on it. No one will replace its niche if only for that reason. Bitcoin doesn't have this justification.
The "ooooh" "bad" corporate coin Ripple (facepalm!)
So along with the Bitcoin religion comes some anarcho-capitalist fantasy that if a coin is produced by a well-funded, real company with the ability to support major industries, it is somehow "impure" and "a banker's coin". Frankly, this is as dumb of a statement as I have ever heard. Ripple, although already somewhat outdated technology as well, has an amazing vision and business plan for replacing the disastrously bad global payment systems that banks and financial systems currently use. Like any blockchain, It will provide immediate clearing and settlement as well as a register of ownership (just what the doctored ordered). Hey, if you can sell a highly useful solution to the current big boys as well, all the power to you. If I could fully avoid Bitcoin for transactions and use Ripple instead for all my purchases, I would take it in a New York minute. Bitcoin is pretty much just useful as a store of value now. It's simply where everybody runs to in the crypto market when they have a "nervous Nelly" moment and don't know where else to put their "stored value".
Don't let the above statements fool you, I'm not a Ripple bigot either (and yes, I do believe very heavily in the Libertarian philosophy). I'm very happy to take something that is even better than Ripple as it's available for easy, fast, cheap, reliable, and highly accepted payments. My interest in having kick ass solutions that really solve my problems. If they don't solve my problems or even create new ones for me, why do I need them hanging about? And let me tell you, this is the mentality of the latest investors coming into cryptocurrencies as well. They could give a shit about the underlying techie specs or some anarcho-capitalist wet dream, they care about solving problems and making money with it. Which is how a business that really serves people is supposed to operate.
The new breed of cryptocurrency investors
So have you been wondering why all the longtime crypto-geeks have been making so much f'n money lately? Thank the business investors (especially from Asia). Guys that read Harvard Business Review and the McKinsey Quarterly have realized that cryptocurrencies and blockchains are here to stay and they want to make money on it too. In fact, so much so, that they are pouring money into the space. Sure, they probably don't know jack about half the technologies and coins out there, but they are fast learners with a lot of extra savings to invest. They don't want religion either, they want real business cases and technologies that get results for people. Sure they may put their money behind some crap, outdated tech as well (think Microsoft), but they ultimately want to sell solutions to the masses and the crypto markets should thank them profusely for it. Not just because these guys are making everybody rich, but because they will be the ones that will bring in the masses. (You know, the 99.999% that still aren't in the cryptos?). They'll do it by making the cryptos professional, clean, easy, simple.. everything it's not now. This is what we need for future global solutions and we should be dropping the religion wherever possible to make sure we get there as fast as possible.
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Fair rebuttals, I don't care if they agree with my philosophy either. I will happily FUD any projects they get their filthy banker hands on though. I love the free market and will support any decentralized crypto currency or token.
@newsandviews - I'm with @hilarski on this one too! I can never see Ripple surpassing Bitcoin because of this!
I agree with you wholeheartedly on a fundamental base. Didn't realize Ether was so slow, but I consider ether as a platform for Dapps or whatever (but I'm not a techie). But as a trader, I'll trade a bullish chart until it's not. And, I'll bail when it's not. The long term chart has not rolled over just yet, but eventually it will. All charts do. That's how I roll....But nicely written truth nonetheless. Amongst the people I trade with, so many devotees to a false fundamental story, and one that is getting worse. But I think you did nailed it on the nose with respect to 'safe store'. It's just a low beta vehicle in the crypto space and so sometimes you just need to slow the trade down. It's a place to go in those situations. Further, the hedge fundies...if they ever come in, are gonna look for liquidity and big cap so they can move as much as possible without detection. They are obviously not en masse yet. It is obvious in the charts, but IF they ever do, it will be in the big ones so they don't get caught.
Thank you @newsandviews for a clear headed article. I have always felt phony with the people ditching Ripple because it doesn't fit their anarcho-capitalist views as you put it. Religious views aside , what real solutions does a real business offer?. that's where the smart money flows. re-steemed!
This is what i was afraid of. The main aim of cyptocurrency isn't to make as much cash as possible, a free market was needed and bitcoin came to the rescue, ripple may be fun for all now but remember, the bankers would eventually look for returns on their investment, and we are all back to the same square.
Well I feel you're not a proponent of the free market, so I'll let you be, you seem to belong to the set of folks who just want to make some money off cryptocurrency.
@hilarski am i wrong or right, i still have a basic understanding of the market, but ill want to be free any-day any-time, instead of worrying about a group managing my cash.
The whole concept of cryptocurrencies came about due an experiment in exchanging value called Bitcoin. The idea was to create a decentralized model for exchanging value based upon scarcity and invested work. An assumed reason for doing this was to allow value creation not to be exploited by governments and especially central banks that essentially do legalized counterfeiting on a regular basis.
People are now associating philosophical central bank opposition with a business service, Ripple, that creates a set number of coins and provides well defined clearing and settlement through a blockchain simply because they are also selling this solution to banks. This is equivalent to saying that anyone that sells their solutions to banks must be "evil banker scum" too. This is frankly preposterous. If I produce furniture and sell it as well to banks, am I also an "evil" banker because I sell them furniture?
Let me add another point to this. Remember that Steemit is also a business. It's not just some benevolent community running it all. This is why the owners are taking massive profits on Steem's rise and their whale friends are also taking huge profits on their articles (like Jeff Berwick with his $15,000 first article). Steem is centrally created within the Steemit platform (run by this business) and they can produce unlimited numbers of Steem (as far as I can tell). This is a far worse model than Ripple because they can inflate it as much as they want. This inflation is the problem with central banking everybody hates. I don't hear anyone protesting the Steemit business and the Steem inflation potential, but it's their business model like it or not.
All these cryptos at the end of the day are start up companies of one shape or another. They have centralized teams that work on them and make major money for them. None of them are "pure" as most cryto-advocates are hoping for. Some are more community based then others but at the end of the day, their real value is to solve a problem and their value should be based upon this. If they legitimately are creating new problems as well then this is also an issue, but as much as I've heard complaining about this with Ripple I don't see a real case for saying this yet.
What I mostly see is a bunch of unfounded anti-banker rants that have nothing to do with Ripple since Ripple is just providing financial services companies a solution to use. Actually this is great for the crypto community because it legitimizes them to major investors. Etherium is being used by JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, probably three of the most corrupt banks in the world and you don't hear a peep out of anybody about this. Is Etherium now also an "evil banker" coin?