About 80% of the cryptocurrencies are either clear scams, or are worthless junk, copycats or just plain old pump & dump schemes. Yet amongst the pile of trash, a few of them emerges as potential competitors to Bitcoin, only to realize that Bitcoin out-competes them, and they sink back into oblivion.
Many coins in the top 10 are in my opinion trash, and it's just a question of time until their investors will lose their money that they have invested in them. Bitcoin in my opinion is un-defeatable, and those coins that try to defeat it, are doomed.
If they don't add any extra value, besides the currency thing, then they won't be here for long, and even if they do, that may be just a hyped thing that is really worthless. So let me share with you my top 3 picks of junk currencies amongst the top 10.
Litecoin
Litecoin is a pure copycat of Bitcoin. It has different mining algo, and different supply, and a few different specs, but it's essentially a copy of Bitcoin with different parameters. Unlike Bitcoin, LTC has a known inventor Charlie Lee.
This is a problem, because it's more centralized if there is a ruler to rule over the coin. Besides LTC doesn't offer any real value, and it's barely accepted by merchants, and nowhere nearly as used as BTC. It used to be accepted, but it isn't anymore, and it's fading away into oblivion.
The only reason LTC still exists, is because it serves as a backup if anything bad happens with BTC, and it's also a good testing lab for different software implementations, but other than that, it has no real value or demand.
Dogecoin
It's the same as Litecoin except it's much worse. It is a joke currency, I don't think you can take it seriously, and it's not just a joke because it was based on an internet-meme, but it's also a joke because it has infinite supply, and endless inflation.
It's essentially a fiat currency, backed by nothing, with a fading demand as the meme fades away into oblivion. I can hardly believe anybody uses this currency other than some 10 year old kids, but I hardly believe it has serious investors backing it.
It is just pure trash from any point of view you look at it, and I don't see how anyone can invest in such thing.
Ethereum
Ethereum started out as a good project with high expectations, and then it fell into a cesspool. The idea of Ethereum was pretty much un-accomplishable, since it promised a Turing Complete system, you know a system that can run any malware on it, essentially making it a live botnet. However they quickly scaled back from this promise and put safeguards against this in the code, making the system very bloated and inefficient.
Nontheless it was a good test of software engineering, but lately it became just comical to watch the drama going on over there. The DAO was hacked, a thief stole tens of millions of dollars, and the code had to been forked multiple times to fix this. Then Ethereum Classic popped up, as a response, which was just hilarious to watch.
It looks to me very similar to a government program, where bureaucrats are just trying to "fix" things and in doing so they create even bigger problems as a result, instead of bright computer scientists using their brains to actually achieve something good.
The only advantage ETH had, was that it was the first platform to offer practical smart contracts, but this advantage is over as now we have LISK and RootStock (via BTC alt-chains) to deliver this same promise, but much more efficiently and much more securely.
The dream of ETH is fading away, the hype is over, and the market cap just crashed 200 million $ in the near past. It is fading away.
Disclaimer: The information provided on this page might be incorrect. I am not responsible if you lose money using the information on this page! This is not an investment advice, just my opinion and analysis for educational purposes.
Sources:
Ltc LOGO: by Losh1212 (Own work) CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
http://dogecoin.com
ETH Logo: by Ethereum Foundation CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Upvote, ReSteem & 
Have to agree on Doge. Good community but that coin is going nowhere fast at the moment. So much so that people are giving away 1000s of coins lol.
litecoin is a great coin, it does its job, which low cost transcations at a cheap rate very fast. Don't get too distracted by all the coins causing hype, the glitter and glamour. All that will fade away if the actual product never develops. Litecoin is one of the ones are, why fix some thing when nothing is broken? Ethereum on the other hand is doing a great job. But the hype might be ruining it, it has a great team behind it that are working hard on new developments. We have to learn to tune out the noise, and look at the core product and invest wisely.
I'm with you on this one!
In my opinion Ethereum isn't so bad, but may be you're right the hype is over. Let's look ;-)
Rootstock could probably do all things ETH can, and it will be built on a secure network like bitcoin. It will easily outcompete ETH.
You can't have anything that can do all the things that ETH can do AND be as secure as bitcoin. Flexibility versus security is a tradeoff that has always existed in I.T.
I like Doge, it is fun, they have a nice community, and they did a lot to get more normal people into cryptocurrencies when they launched.
Well yes, it's good to have a diverse community of cryptocoiners who can attract people from outside from different groups.
However I was criticizing doge based from an investment standpoint. I think it's a horrible investment.
But if it can convert people to join us, then it is useful in that sense.
thanks for sharing. i'm still learning.
you are welcome.
I tip my hat to you. One of my favourite authors here... thanks for you perspective on these crypto coins!
you are welcome
Excellent article. It said what needed to be said. Hundreds of millions $ are locked in those cryptos, almost without any useful purpose, it's like a huge anchor for the whole crypto-world.
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I like DOGE because it's the most stable price !
Another great article, what are your thoughts on Monero?
Seen some high spikes recently but no new information.
I suppose the author considers that Zcash,Feathercoin and Namecoin don't deserve even a mention here.
I already covered Zcash in another post. Feathercoin is not in the top 10.
And namecoin is actually pretty good, atleast their goal is noble. Decentralizing the DNS system is a good project.
Just saw this and wondered if anything has changed in your mind now?