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Comment by ibdf | Hacker News Reader

Honestly curious as I only know of a few cryptocurrencies. - - Are there over 500 types of cryptocurrencies? - If so, can anything past top 5 even survive (long term, like a few years?) - Doesn't the increase in amount of coins dilutes its own value?

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This is a common question. I suggest you think of it like stocks on the NYSE or NASDAQ. Does every IPO decrease the value of the already listed companies? Just as Comcast and Dish are both television distribution companies that manage to serve different markets, so to can different coins coexist. This is especially true when the coins have completely different objectives and are not just chasing the retail point of sale niche.

Thanks. That makes sense.

There are about 900 listed on Coinmarketcap cap right now or thereabouts. In total, it should be over 1500. If there is anything my research for this project has taught me, majority of the coins didn't need to do an ICO when all they were building were simple apps.

So no, I don't think the majority will survive (hence the need for this project) but the survivors will be so astonishing and will give amazing returns.

My impression is that as general currencies only a few will survive. Where it might blur is where the blockchain aspect is getting used over the currency aspect, and there one might think of it more as apps or exchanges of 'currency' or work tailored for specific markets. Still, I'm pretty skeptical as I think so far all the uses are more hype-supported than providing wide scale value, but that's balanced by a lot of people exploring a lot of possibilities.

There's more cryptocurrencies than circulating currencies now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_circulating_currencies

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