Are Altcoins Undermining Bitcoin's Credibility? 267
An anonymous reader writes The editor of a Bitcoin advocacy site believes the proliferation of altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) is harming Bitcoin's long-term potential as an alternative to traditional currencies. Posting at BadBitcoin.org, a site that seeks to expose online scams that target Bitcoin users, the pseudonymous ViK compares altcoins, including the Internet meme inspired Dogecoin, to a pump-and-dump scheme where developers create their own version of the Bitcoin wallet and blockchain and then "pre-mine" or generate a significant number of cryptocurrency units before the altcoin's official release. Later, when their value has risen, the pre-mined altcoins are exchanged for Bitcoin or in some cases converted directly to cash. While critics of cryptocurrencies in general might find ViK's comments about the altcoin "tulip" mania ironic, the self-confessed Bitcoin fan is nevertheless calling for an altcoin boycott: "The easiest way to stop them is to not participate. We all know that they only have one purpose, and that is to make Bitcoin for the so called developers."
Re:Bitcoin credibility? (Score:4, Informative)
You're just miffed because I have a hotel on Park Place and three houses on Boardwalk.
That is a violation of the rules. Houses and hotels must be as evenly distributed as possible across properties of the same group. So it is legal to have a hotel on Park Place, and four houses on Boardwalk, or four houses on each, or four on one and three on the other. But it is NOT legal to have three houses on one and a hotel on the other. Here are the official rules [wikibooks.org].
Re:Self Serving Story? (Score:3, Informative)
You must have missed the part where it said
editor of a Bitcoin advocacy site
This "article" is just another stupid "I like this thing and hate its competitors so you should hate its competitors too" rant.
Re:ASICs drive out CPUs and GPUs ... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think you understand what an ASIC is, even though you tried to define it.
There is no such thing as an 'ASIC proof algorithm' because you simply design the ASIC to handle that situation. Doesn't matter what you put into it, the ASIC gets designed to deal with that problem and does it more efficiently than any generic circuit can. Theres nothing a GPU or GPCPU can do that an ASIC can't. The term 'ASIC' doesn't define a specific type of circuit. GPUs are ASICs who's application is graphics processing, for example. An Intel CPU is an ASIC who's application is general purpose computing!
If you change the algorithm then you aren't making it 'ASIC proof', you're just making it not work for a specific type of ASIC or making it not work well. Its no different than saying BitCoin is 'ASIC proof' because the routing chips in Cisco routers can't do BitCoin hashes efficiently.