RE: Bitcoin Will Eventually Become Obsolete
I understand your argument, but I think you may be under-valuing the network effect when it comes to money. The USD isn't a great ledger system, and it's being inflated every day, but everyone still uses it as the world reserve currency because of it's massive network effect. Well, that and the aircraft carriers / petrol dollar / military industrial complex backing it up with threats of violent force. Now, I get how we should be comparing cryptocurrencies to cryptocurrencies here, but I wanted to give that as an example to show the power of the network effect when it comes to money.
For more on the "what gives bitcoin value" argument, see @sean-king's argument which I recorded to audio here. It's all about the network effect and Bitcoin's is huge.
Also, Bitcoin is open source. Changes, even difficult ones, could be made if the network decides it's necessary. As those altcoins rise, it will create more pressure to upgrade Bitcoin to compete. Anything is possible. We're seeing this with Ethereum talking about moving to proof of stake. That's an example of a huge change which can be done in open source projects. Unlike the Model T which was physical, protocols are just software code and can be changed at anytime as long as the consensus of the miners allow it.
That said, I recently had a transaction hang for 48+ hours and ultimately had to push it through with $9+ in fees and the "Child Pays for Parent" trick. I'm not a huge fan. I much prefer the newer technologies that are coming out. I do think they will take quite a bit of bitcoin's marketshare over time and maybe two years is a good timeline for that. Still though, most people have no idea what cryptocurrency is. Those that do, often think Bitcoin is the only one. It will take time for information to spread enough for people to reject Bitcoin as a good store of value.
Thank you for your input man. I am sharing your views as well. The last part about people being ignorant about blockchain is what is important. Bitcoin reached these levels with a very small % of the population. Imagine what would happen when alts hit 10-15-35% of the population — from businesses to programmers. I believe Bitcoin's overshadowing is inevitable (considering that Blockchain moves to massive adaptation).
We are 5 months in @lukestokes
What’s your point? Check back in five years, not five months.
Well, I called the Alts December pump + not even halfway to the flippening yet. 2019 is the time for me to come back. not 5 years.
To be clear, I'd love to see BTC's dominance go away. In many ways it's like the petrodollar, controlling the prices of all other cryptocurrencies since they are all traded on BTC pairs. I prefer to see good decentralized exchanges with volume trading in every pair with simple-to-use bots anyone can hook into to automatically arbitrage the markets.
Will we get that any time soon? I'm doubtful. Predictions about what the future markets will do are always... iffy. Maybe you're right and September 2019 will be the flippening to altcoins. Already, however, we're seeing some divergence from your image:
But who knows. It's early. I'm fine with checking back in 5 years and in crypto currency terms, September 2019 is a decade away. :)
My image has a huge zoom out and surely i can't draw the entire path from last year to q3 2019. BTC will come even lower in the coming months and Eth will start gaining traction. There is no other way really.
Thoughts on posts like this? Do you think this is just maximalist idealistic thinking and they will be in for a rude awakening by mid next year? Maybe EOS will eat the world. :)
Or how about this one?
nop. I think none of these coins will survive. They will but like i said above, no better than doge or rubies