Why Altcoins always stay in the shadow of Bitcoin ?
First of all , I want to say I'm sorry because my English isn't that good . (I'm from Algeria)
Now , we see a lot of crypto currencies out there , some of them are fake , others are legit.
Even with an altcoin getting known (like Ethereum) for example , It always stays behind Bitcoin , no matter how much the price of that altcoin is or would be.
I consider Bitcoin as the original thing and the other crypto currencies as some cheap coins , however ... that doesn't change the fact that some Altcoins are better than Bitcoin (when It comes to the features etc...)
While there are some altcoins rising like Ripple , Ethereum ... I don't understand how since I never see them accepted at shops or have services dedicated to them . (like we have OpenBazaar , Purse.io , Steam who know accept Bitcoin etc... ) While we have altcoins like Dogecoin and Litecoin who are known for ever and accepted in different websites and forums ... but their price doesn't show that .
Still , that doesn't change my main question , why Altcoins never beat Bitcoin even if they are better developped ?
It is because alts arn't used as much as bitcoin. If we ever get to a position where alt transactions exceed bitcoin transactions, that would be a game changer.
Unless some coin has a superior onboarding...
Even if an altcoin has better features, Bitcoin still has the most secure Blockchain, has the most liquidity, and has the biggest network effect. A currency is only as good as the people who use it and being able to exchange it for goods and services or even other currencies/assets is an important aspect of any good money.
Think of it like a social media network. Facebook is a dominant social media company and anyone could make a new and better social network, but any new network is basically useless if there aren't any people to use it, regardless of how good the features are.
Simple answer is, altcoins are not 'better' than Bitcoin. It depends on how you compare the cryptocurrencies. For example there does not exist any altcoin which has a more secure Blockchain than Bitcoin. The Bitcoin blockchain is the blockchain with the highest hashrate and difficulty which means the best security for transactions.
Most altcoins have a different goal and therefore other features in mind than Bitcoin has.
The exact same reason that one technology like Blu-Ray DVD beats its' competition. (HD-DVD in that case.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
Network effects are ALL powerful when talking about protocols.
I upvoted you.