# Alternative Cryptocurrencies



## BreadKettle (17 Dec 2017)

I have to say I have found this forum pretty amusing since I registered last week.

I would like to know if anyone has any opinions on cryptocurrencies or digital assets that are not Bitcoin?

Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Cardano, IOTA, Qtum etc

Many of these have actually outperformed Bitcoin this year making many new millionaires.

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Does their performance alone warrant calling them all scams on AAM ?

Is anyone here familiar with any of them?


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## landlord (17 Dec 2017)

I find you tube a great source of info regarding alt coins. Although you have to carefully select which analysts you subscribe to.
My tip would be try to figure out which new alt coins the big exchanges such as Coinbase/GDAX will be soon adopting.
Also invsesting in a broad spectrum of alt coins according to utility.


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## TheBigShort (17 Dec 2017)

I have some Litecoin, bought at €38 back in June. Doing quite nicely now. 
However...I would say, one of the things confusing me about crypto is the variance of cryptos and what exactly is the difference between them? 
Perhaps you can assist here in explaining this?


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## ant dee (17 Dec 2017)

Not an easy thing to explain TBS.
Some coins have just slightly different rules than bitcoin, maybe a bigger block ( making them faster?) or Bitcoin Asic miners wont work with them so you need to use new hardware or graphic cards ( making them 'green?) etc.
Point is, its all trade-offs, meaning something faster isn't as secure, something cheaper lacks somewhere else etc.

Then you have increased or complete anonymity in some coins, like Zcash, Monero.

And then some are like completely different like Ethereum, Iota.

So, you are better of googling and prepare for either a boring technical read, a maybe biased view saying it will overtake bitcoin or another maybe biased view calling the coin a scam.


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## BreadKettle (17 Dec 2017)

TheBigShort said:


> I have some Litecoin, bought at €38 back in June. Doing quite nicely now.



Nice one, 1000% and counting!



TheBigShort said:


> However...I would say, one of the things confusing me about crypto is the variance of cryptos and what exactly is the difference between them?
> Perhaps you can assist here in explaining this?



Happy to help where I can but that question is a vast one. A good place to start with Litecoin would be any interview with Charlie Lee, in short though Litecoin and Bitcoin are very similar in that they were both designed to be a decentralised digital currency. Litecoin has essentially just upgraded Bitcoin's code to become much faster and handle more transactions, it aims to be used between consumers and merchants as opposed to a store of value or a commodity which BTC is seen by some as becoming.

Ethereum does much more, it is a full platform for decentralised applications. Where BTC and LTC have one application (digital currency), ethereum is open for developers to build on using smart contracts. This has been really explosive and there are literally 100's if not 1000's of independent project's being developed on it for all sorts of use cases and purposes. A 3 figure investment into the Ethereum ICO in 2014 would be worth 7 figures today.

There are too many others to go into really. Some are garbage as people jump on the ICO bandwagon, others have genuine value and will survive the inevitable cull.


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## landlord (20 Dec 2017)

landlord said:


> My tip would be try to figure out which new alt coins the big exchanges such as Coinbase/GDAX will be soon adopting.



So did any one figure out it would be Bitcoin Cash and make a killing last night? Not me I am afraid.
I personally do not believe in the “cashening” (Bitcoin Cash taking over from Bitcoin) despite Bitcoin Cash being technically superior to Bitcoin.
The principle of “First to market” I think will keep Bitcoin in the lead.
But the cashening fear just like a few weeks ago sure did impact price action. Last night there was a Bitcoin flash crash on GDAX, Bitcoin down approx $4,000 before recovering somewhat.
Anyone else any thoughts on the Cashening? Please please please and with respect could we have just this one thread where the
“Charge of the WORTHLESS brigade” are banned.


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## ant dee (20 Dec 2017)

I think big companies can make their own tokens, like amazon updating amazon gift cards to their own cryptocurrency.
Then people can cash out their gift cards, or I can buy them just before making an amazon purchase.
Same with Tesco clubcard.
Airline miles.
The list can go on..

Probably there is a legal nightmare with that and someone big has to make the first move and get hammered from regulators.


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## Dan Murray (20 Dec 2017)

https://www.quora.com/Will-Google-create-a-cryptocurrency-of-their-own

https://www.em360tech.com/tech-news/cryptocurrencies-receive-major-boost-googles-entry-market/

My previous post was deleted. I was asked to attach a link. These are just two of many such links.


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## jman0war (20 Dec 2017)

landlord said:


> So did any one figure out it would be Bitcoin Cash and make a killing last night? Not me I am afraid.
> I personally do not believe in the “cashening” (Bitcoin Cash taking over from Bitcoin) despite Bitcoin Cash being technically superior to Bitcoin.
> The principle of “First to market” I think will keep Bitcoin in the lead.
> But the cashening fear just like a few weeks ago sure did impact price action. Last night there was a Bitcoin flash crash on GDAX, Bitcoin down approx $4,000 before recovering somewhat.
> ...


Won't happen.
Language is language and operates under it's own rules that have nothing to do with market capitalization or price.

Bitcoin Cash is not "technically superior". What does that mean anyway?
Bitcoin Cash is a copy and paste of Bitcoin, with a couple changes.

One of the changes they made was to make it easier for miners to mine a block, by dynamically altering the difficulty algorithim.
This led to some crazy results as Bitcoin Cash would go from mining 1 block every 10 minutes to mining like, 80 blocks every 10 minutes.
Those blocks were totally empty (no transactions in them) so that's appalling.
Additionally by mining blocks too quickly they were basically inflating their money supply.
They had to hard fork Bitcoin Cash rules to fix it after a few months.

Today, they are still highly centralized by one mining pool and are basically wide open to a 51% attack.


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## BreadKettle (20 Dec 2017)

I'm still holding 60% of the BCH that my key was airdropped from the fork. Remarkably I didn't dump it all, "just in case".

Proving to be competitive, Bitmain and Roger Ver have a lot of power.


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## MrEarl (21 Dec 2017)

I like Ether and Ripple,

I see both offering far more potential for use in day to day commerce.

In terms of other crypto currencies, there are numerous "penny share" equivalents - see: Bittrex.com if you fancy a flutter (but it is just that, a flutter !)


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