Bitcoin's Best Competitors: The Top Altcoins of 2013
Bitcoin has dominated the headlines this year, with massive price fluctuations, regulatory developments, and even Senate hearings by the US government. All these factors indicate that people are beginning to take the young currency seriously. But let's not forget about the alternative coins out there. 2013 has been a busy year for them, too. How have they fared? Though CoinDesk has covered some of these alternative coins in depth already, it is interesting to note which currencies have stood out from a market capitalization perspective this year. Here are the six top altcoins of 2013,....
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Mainstream media outlets are beginning to advance the idea that Ethereum and Bitcoin are traditional competitors. This notion does not make much sense. Ethereum and Bitcoin are two different expressions of a similar notion, with important differences that ultimately make them fundamentally different. While it is true both have great uses for online gambling, especially where it’s illegal, calling them competitors might be akin to calling fiat currencies competitors. While in a way they are, they are much more symbiotic in today’s political economy than competitors generally are considered....
A lot of people tend to ignore the fact that Bitcoin is not Ethereum and vice versa. Nor should they be, to be frank, as we have seen enough clones of Bitcoin over the past seven years. Ethereum is doing something entirely different, which is a welcome change in the overflowing oceans of useless altcoins. The competition between Bitcoin and Ethereum is real, but it is not taking place in the same niche market. Unlike what most people think, Ethereum and Bitcoin are not achieving the same goal per se, as the former is focusing on making the blockchain more appealing to everyday users,....
Triple hurray for the service that doesn’t forget about the lesser siblings of the Bitcoin. GoCoin has turned its attention towards DogeCoin. In the beginning of the year we told you about the GoCoin’s decision to accept Litecoin and in the long run continue adding up more altcoins. Seems like Steve Beureugard, the CEO of the service wasn’t just throwing words when he told that originally GoCoin had been designed to support not only Bitcoin but also many different altcoins. GoCoin works as a PayPal for cryptocurrency working as a middleman in transactions. Originated in Singapore in late....
Competing cryptocurrencies have been in the news lately. This VICE Motherboardroundupis a good list of some of bitcoin's most promising challengers. But it makes a comparison which reveals a view often expressed but is probably misguided about the nature of cryptocurrency competition. "Is there room for more than one sheriff in town?" writer Alec Liu asks. "In the case of Facebook, competitors with similar functionality never made it, regardless of apparently advantageous tweaks to the original formula." The comparison makes sense at first. Most people use only one kind of money, and....
By the end of year 2013, Litecoin looked like the only alternative to its popular counterpart Bitcoin. Traders, who missed the chance of boarding the latter's quick-buck train, hugely looked upon its next-best to repeat the $13-to-$1,100 magic. Everything was working in Litecoin's favor - from favorable media coverage to booming merchant and user adoption. 2014 was indeed supposed to be a smoother ride for the silver coin. But as soon as this year is approaching its end, it is leaving behind quite a daunted version of Litecoin - a complete opposite of what we encountered in 2013. Take the....