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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