Bitcoin is in the news again, and on face value, things might not look so rosy. Though the way the price has dropped is due to speculative investors, who have panicked and jumped ship.
They invested in case they missed out on the crypto scene, and as soon as there is a hiccup, they panic and sell in the hope of making a quick profit. While this had the unintended consequence of reducing the cost and time per transaction, helping those using the Bitcoin for privacy, it does raise the question of whether Bitcoin has a future as an investment.
Bitcoin is not without its flaws
BTC does have problems though as it stands, it has been shown to be robust and buck the market trend. It has shown the world what is possible with cryptocurrencies and has helped to introduce some groundbreaking technology. The most significant being the Blockchain.
One of the most significant flaws that BTC has is the amount of power it consumes to perform all of the transactions.
This makes it borderline feasible for the miners to make a profit. If it will be the best long-term cryptocurrency is hard to tell. As soon as electricity costs rise above any benefit that can be made by mining BTC, it is hard to say what will happen.
One possible solution is it has another fork as it did previously. From this fork, there was Bitcoin Cash which was introduced, and specific flaws were addressed and it has now become a competitor against BTC.
Network Congestion
This is another area where there is a significant flaw with BTC. The more users who are on the network, the slower the network becomes, and the more substantial the backlog of transactions grows.
This could turn against BTC and pave the way for other altcoins to encroach on BTC’s domination.
As an aside to this congestion there is also Net Neutrality which keeps raising its ugly head. To a certain extent, BTC does help in a fight against this. Big ISP’s though can take a dislike to BTC or any exchanges who deal with it and restrict access or throttle connections. It could become a victim of its own digital currency success and become stuck with nowhere to go.
Altcoins
With all the flaws bitcoin has some second-generation altcoins have remedied some of the problems though these have not been able to leapfrog BTC.
If we look at what they do differently, it is easier to see if they will be able to pass BTC and become one of the chosen altcoins for worldwide usage.
Monero Private and Secure
This crypto focuses on privacy and security. Though it has hit the news again over the past week or so, as with BTC is not a problem with the coin. Cyber-criminals have begun mining Monero by use of a bot that has infected a large number of servers.
This will be a black mark against this currency yet the coin is doing as it was designed. If the coins are recovered, they are fungible and will not be devalued by no fault of their own or the users who follow.
Stellar Payment Network
Here a payment network is created that allows transactions to be performed almost instantaneously. Stellar runs a protocol that will enable these transactions to take place.
The open source nature of this coin makes it ideal, and a few non-profit organizations are looking at its use. Stripe is one company who process payments and is already considering as a replacement for BTC in a couple of months’ time.
Cardano Smart Contracts
Smart contracts are the order of the game with this coin. These can be created to cover many different things other than only financial transactions.
It aims to be the most technologically advanced and was built from the ground up by teams using a scientific philosophy. Cardano seeks to give a much more in-depth wealth of functionality than BTC does at present.
Skycoins New Internet
All of the above coins are 2nd generation altcoins and are still tied to the Blockchain as it is or is based on Ethereum.
To make a significant difference, the best cryptocurrency has to be the one which takes all the flaws and addresses them. This coin will also have to bring something new to the way things currently work.
Skycoin is the best of the 3rd generation altcoin and will do just that. The company behind SKY has developed a new algorithm, so there is no mining of coins, less power consumption means a more efficient network.
This is the beauty of Skycoin as it ties into Skywire which is their P2P mesh network which is based on decentralized nodes. These are the equivalent of BTC miners though are more energy efficient, and they are paid to forward data and traffic to avoid bottlenecks.
The more users who are part of this secure network and the better it scales. As an aside, it performs like one worldwide VPN, so net neutrality is addressed as well as the flaws with BTC.