BRIAN SOVRYN SAYS ‘ALTCOINS ARE BULLSHIT,’ PROVIDES WEAK ARGUMENT

It’s hard to argue too passionately for anything related to cryptocurrency beyond that it is good for humanity, it is liberating, and it is a huge part of the future, financial and otherwise, of humanity. There are some who have made a great deal of money from Bitcoin, who argue passionately for Bitcoin exclusivity. Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, calls these people ‘Bitcoin maximalists.’
There is another class of argument, one which may perhaps be called a network effect but not completely, for why a service that uses Bitcoin as a currency will perform better: the incentivized marketing of the Bitcoin community. […] It’s well-known that people tend to change their moral values to align with their personal interests, so the channel here is more complex: people who hold BTC start to see it as being in the common interest for Bitcoin to succeed… […] [T]he creation of an ecosystem that uses Bitcoin exclusively is a highly suspect endeavor, and one that will lead to a total reduction and increased centralization of funding (as only the ultra-rich have sufficient concentrated incentive to be speculative philanthropists), closed doors in security (no more proof of stake), and is not even necessarily guaranteed to end with Bitcoin willing.

This post was published at Crypto Coins News on December 24, 2014.