Why “Hodl” BTC – The No. 1 Cryptocurrency
Most traders who are into Bitcoin since years share the opinion that Bitcoin is and will stay the leading cryptocurrency for some very good reasons.
That’s why the trading goal of many professional full time crypto traders is to get more BTC, not to get more USD. They see the leading cryptocurrency as an asset for future wealth in contrast to fiat money that constantly loses it’s value.
Crypto newbies don’t have all the background information yet which is needed to understand the real underlying value of Bitcoin compared to all the other cryptocurrencies that have been developed based on Bitcoin’s revolutionary unique technology. And who wouldn’t understand it? There are so many altcoins right now, new ones being created every month. Tons of news about this coin and that coin are spread through the media all the time. So it’s natural that a newbie will get confused by all that information.
Therefore we want to bring some light into the dark and explain the important factors in a nutshell why BTC is the leading cryptocurrency for a reason:
The 12 Best Reasons Why It’s Likely That Bitcoin Will Remain The No.1 Cryptocurrency:
- Simplicity: Bitcoin’s purpose is simple and straight: The world’s first and leading cryptocurrency is for transfer of value/storage of value only (digital money/gold). Although the underlying technology isn’t simple at all – it’s purpose is. Simplicity often wins against more complex systems.
- Security: The more fancy features developers of new cryptocurrencies want to add to Bitcoin’s technology in order to create a “better” version, the more insecure the new models becomes as they will likely be more prone to bugs. Remember the DAO bug of Ethereum, which even hasn’t been the only one).
- The big innovation: Many people think that new cryptocurrencies with more features will bring a new big innovation. But the point is: The big innovation has already happened. Bitcoin’s blockchain system, with a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm and a decentralized system etc. is the one massive innovation that has already happened. All the little ideas and features developers want to add to that base system doesn’t bring the big innovation anymore.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t absolutely cool and great that developers are excited about the concept of Bitcoin and try to find more ways to use the underlying technology in interesting variants – but still, it won’t be the big innovation anymore, it will only be variants of the one big genius system that had already been invented by somebody else..
- Time: Bitcoin has proven it’s security since 10 years already, which is a very important trust factor which all the younger coins can’t provide yet. And as said, the likelihood for failure at more complex systems is quite high.
- Network effect: Bitcoin has the highest network effect by far. It’s the cryptocurrency with the most real world use cases since many businesses and shops accept BTC. Bitcoin’s scope of use cases is unique so far. Those businesses won’t replace BTC easily by another cryptocurrency since changes come with costs and risks.
- True Decentralization: One very important difference between Bitcoin and ALL altcoins is, that it’s the only real decentralized cryptocurrency – which is one if the most important features of the underlying innovation. Decentralization is the big game changer Bitcoin brought into the world. And all altcoins can’t come up with that, because they all have a company or a group of founders in the background whose influence on their altcoin’s system is high. It’s brilliant that Bitcoin’s founder named Satoshi Nakamoto is unknown. So there is no single head or leader as main influencer on the system. And still the system is so brilliant and so secure.
- Limited Supply and growing scarcity: Bitcoin has a limited end supply and a decreasing emission rate of mining. This means a growing scarcity of supply and therefore economic-wise price has to increase over time.
- No real alternative: All newer Bitcoin variants from hard forks or other altcoins couldn’t bring a better system, although their marketing guys might try to convince people – of course they make advert for their own coin.
- Established system: Even if there would come a “better” system, it’s likely that it wouldn’t manage to overtake Bitcoin anymore since after 10 years Bitcoin is probably too established.
As we’ve once learned from Andreas Antonopoulos – it’s often not the “best” system that makes the game but the one that gets more established because it might have been the first system, or the one with the highest network effect, the one that somehow just gets used the most. And that leads to kind of a chain reaction. Every time a new user has the choice between different options, he likely takes the one that is used by the majority of people, for compatibility and trust reasons. Andreas knows a lot of examples – I just remember the http protocol example, which might not have been the best internet protocol but the one that could prevail.
- Bitcoin is the reserve currency, therefore it plays the biggest role in the crypto trade markets.
- In Japan Bitcoin is official currency.
- Switzerland supports the use of Bitcoin, as you can find on SBB’s website which is Switzerland’s official railway company.
If you want to get a deeper understanding about the mind-blowing innovation that is Bitcoin: A.Antonopoulos’s book “The Internet of Money” is a hot tip.
I still get goosebumps when I think of the realization that Bitcoin is not a money for the internet.
It’s way more than that, it’s something bigger – it’s something way more fundamental than just any new currency.
Bitcoin is an entire new system, it’s the world’s first system that is neutral, borderless, working from peer-to-peer, without the need of permission of middlemen/governments.
The internet has been a network of information transfer so far.
Bitcoin is an evolutionary step further for the internet: It’s a neutral network for value transfer on top of the internet. Bitcoin is the internet of money.