Bitcoin has long held a firm lead in the cryptocurrency world. However, this advantage has become diminished over the years as more altcoins have made gains in distribution, value, and adoption. Bitcoin’s market capitalization percentage , well over 90% for 2013, has since declined to 82% after having reached an all-time low of 74% in March. Altcoins’ percentage of trading volume is also at an all-time high.
However, market capitalization and trading volume only tell half the story, ignoring adoption and acceptance by merchants. CoinTelegraph spoke to several developers and representatives of alternative cryptocurrencies about the changing landscape of cryptocurrency adoption. Bitcoin’s limitations
While Bitcoin has earned its place at the head of the cryptocurrency movement, it has reached certain limitations, according to Dash developer Moocowmoo. “Bitcoin is amazing technology and has an extremely powerful network securing it, but because of it’s social and financial inertia it cannot incorporate some of the technologies created since its inception. The resistance to adopting more modern techniques is a complex social issue, as recently illustrated by the block size debate.” Moocowmoo noted Bitcoin’s mining issues due to hashrate changes, “recently, blocks 401410 and 402456 took 90 minutes to discover.” Hlynur Þór Björnsson, board member of the Auroracoin Foundation, notes Bitcoin’s place in the cryptocurrency world, but underscores the need for alternatives. “I believe that we will always have Bitcoin as the backbone of the crypto market, something like USD works for the global economy and gold was before the USD. For crypto to become the standard, I’m sure we will need many altcoins and not just Bitcoin to cover and service small or large economies. Each economy will have to have the flexibility to devalue or appreciate if there are changes in the local economy.” Dash
Recently, Dash has made inroads into merchant […]
