The starfish that split itself too much. Oversaturation in the blockchain space.
I enjoy to try to stay up to date on new blockchain projects as much as the next human. This is becoming more and more difficult as the amount of projects stack on top of each other. There are projects that have been out for years still have not proven themselves and they are being trampled on by more new coins that are yet to prove themselves either.
If you cut a starfish into 5 pieces it will grow into 5 separate starfish. That is the beauty of its decentralized nature. if you break apart the starfish into 100 pieces will it grow 100 starfish? If you separate it into thousands of pieces? At some point the amount of starfish compared to the food available will cause a mass die off since there are so many starfish and not enough food to feed the ten thousand ten thousands of starfish that have split off the original. that or you will separate the bitcoin starfish into so many other starfish the pieces will be to small for any of them to become the starfish we need.
Not that this will happen to bitcoin, its old enough that it will survive the mass die off, many coins are to small and wont get the nutrients they need to grow into their own. Bitcoin Dark, bitcoin gold, bitcoin private, bitcoin diamond, all these other bitcoins are struggling to grow into full starfish that can sustain themselves. Unfortunately its only going to be harder and harder for them too as more and more blockchain projects (starfish) show up to fight over the limited amount of food (money). Privacy coins fracturing the market over and over, smart contract platforms, betting blockchains, social media chains, RFID ones as well. There are new projects every day fighting over the same scraps as their competition.
I wish all these projects the best, success, and all that other shit. At some point some of them need to provide us with use and value though. You know maybe all these projects are just propelling us towards actual use faster. Making the older projects realize they are not alone anymore, so they better provide something we can use that will make our lives better. As the amount of projects increase, the odds of you choosing the wrong project to invest in also rise significantly. Stay vigil out there, and do your due diligence.
When I first joined Steemit, I could digest all of the content that was here. I could go through my feed, I could go through introduceyourself, gaming, politics, and the blockchain tag. Now just getting through all the posts added to my feed every day is hard enough. Too oversaturated for me to get to them all, blockchains and new cryptocurrencies are becoming the same way. YET STILL. I only use NEO for gas, Steem for posting, and NLC2 for fantasy sports. The rest I just speculate that they will one day, eventually.. add value to my life.
Are we there yet?
Woot woot,
It's hard to let go of some of these coins, knowing one could moon and make a significant sum for me. But, at the same time, some of my holdings will likely be worthless at some point. They can't all last, but that's the game I guess.
I've wondered, since I'm the rookie here when it comes to all things crypto, whether or not all the alt coins out there really have a chance. I can see people trying to get in on what appears to be the gravy train, genuine and scammy, so they come up with their own cool name and nuance and they produce another blockchain.
But doesn't big money tend to make or break anything, and don't they tend to move the markets wherever they go? Smart money leads. The rest of us are just in the wake.
As you say, though, at some point people start moving away from a scarcity or difficulty to mine model and start going after utility and functionality. Or at least, that's what we're hoping and all hanging around for, right? :)
It's a similar dilemma in the reverse if you're a new coin, you're one of many, many other new coins trying to get noticed. The pool is finite, the number of supporters limited, and you have to be REALLY unique to get noticed.
In that sense, making a new coin night not be the best idea unless you're super solid on the details or you do something that nobody else does.
At a certain point you start sticking with friends ;)
One must just be vigilant to know the scam platform from the authentic ones.
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