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Comment by Casseres | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin is only valuable because it has the first-mover advantage. If people start to value privacy and fungibility in crypto currencies, then Bitcoin won't stay valueable.

I remember seeing the white paper for Bitcoin here on HN years ago. While I'm not that adventurous (otherwise I'd be a "Bitcoin millionaire"), for anyone who is, or is looking for a project to contribute to, consider Monero:

https://github.com/monero-project/monero

Monero is a private (no one can see how much your wallet contains without a view key) and fungible crypto currency (other's can't see where your "coins" came from).

Disclaimer: I own some Monero, but not enough to make me a millionaire if it becomes popular like Bitcoin.

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I used to fear the same. However better technology/protocol is not enough to replace bitcoin. There are way better Protocols for messaging than SMTP, so why haven't we moved from e-mail?

Also, with services like https://shapeshift.io/ I can forever hold only bitcoin, and can pretty much instantly convert it to whatever other alt-coin I want. Lets say there is indeed a future encrypted-coin which provides perfect anonymity and perfect security and blah blah blah. Cool, I want to use $1,000 worth of encrypted-coin to buy some stuff, so I'll just convert my 0.01 BTC (or whatever equivalent) and do that.

I believe shapeshift has an API too, so it will eventually be even more seamless to "convert" among alt-coins. Might even be transparent (send XX bitcoin and it'll automatically be received as whatever coin).

So, When everyone knows bitcoin, and bitcoin has the largest market, and is the original cryptocurrency, and has the most infrastructure, and the most developers, and can already easily be converted into any alt-coin; Tell me, what is your best argument for how something like Monero will surpass bitcoin?

> $1,000 worth ... 0.01 BTC

It could very well reach 100,000 USD, but being snarky doesn't help your argument.

Shapeshift is a very good service that will keep Bitcoin relevant, and I'm sure there will be more services in the future that will keep Bitcoin valuable.

Right now, Bitcoin is supported primarily by technically-inclined companies/people. Those that want to figure out how to use it to buy illegal items, pay ransoms, or skirt other monetary restrictions will turn to those technically-inclined people (and their websites) to learn.

It's easier now for people to share information and for better ideas to replace older ones. Not so much when e-mail was in its infancy. Now e-mail is ubiquitous, Bitcoin not so much.

Like another person wrote, it's not a zero-sum game. I'm not saying Bitcoin will be worthless. I am saying that it might not "go to the moon" like you think it might with your hypothetical valuation, and another crypto currency might.

> Tell me, what is your best argument for how something like Monero will surpass bitcoin?

Privacy, and as a result: fungibility. It's true, most people don't value privacy today. I only imagine most people here do for the many reasons that have been hashed out over the years, but I guess you're not one of them. The HN community is a very good cross section of the movers and shakers of the digital world. If most people here decided to switch, it would happen.

I don't believe it's a Zero sum game. The future is more likely to be a massive eco system of Block-chain implementations to each it's advantages and disadvantages.

And yes due to many factors, including being the first mover, I do see Bitcoin being the common denominator used to transfer work/stake from one chain to the next.

There are a lot of reasons Bitcoin is worth more than other cryptocoins. I lay out an analysis here: https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-bitcoin-transaction-capaci...

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