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The amount of bitcoin-like crypto currencies overwhelms me.

Just few minutes ago I came across FeatherCoin

The problem is that the information on the official site is scarce and the only thing I was able to understand is that the difference from litecoin is the block reward and the total amount of coins.

What is the point of this?

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  • Feathercoin, like Litecoin and Bitcoin is a proof-of-work based cryptocurrency. These are all vulnerable to 51% atttack. The lower the hash/s the more vulnerable to a 51% attack. Caveat emptor.
    – Stephen Gornick
    May 10, 2013 at 2:55
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    @StephenGornick can you explain how the lower amount of hash rate make the algorithm more vulnerable? If I create a crypto and if the whole world is mining it and gets in total 10Mhashes/second, why is this more vulnerable that another crypto with 10Thashes/second?
    – Salvador Dali
    May 17, 2013 at 13:39
  • Because a single attacker might be able to afford to acquire 10 Mhash/s which gives full control over what new blocks consists of. If the attacker intends to steal, then the attacker simply holds new blocks (doesn't broadcast) until coins are spent and value is received then release the blocks which double spends those funds. Much easier to do if total hashing capacity is 10 Mhash/s than 100 Mhash/s, for example.
    – Stephen Gornick
    May 24, 2013 at 17:26

4 Answers 4

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Most Bitcoin lookalikes are not really worth looking at. The two that are more or less accepted are Litecoin and Namecoin, of which the latter is not intended as a currency. Another more or less popular cryptocurrency that is not based on Bitcoin is Ripple.

I know that there are many more Bitcoin-based currencies. Most of them are not adopted and are thus insignificant. The value of such currencies is made by the willingness of people to exchange them for value, like objects or other money. As long as no one uses these alternative currencies, they are of no meaning at all.

And frankly, wouldn't it be better to first try to make one cryptocurrency succeed instead of spawning hundreds of others before the world knows what a cryptocurrency is?...

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  • It will take proper competition to 'force' one currency to succeed. Then alternate currencies that survive will probably become useful. It remains to be seen if BTC will be the first one adopted by the mainstream. The best marketing plan usually wins and BTC's ... ain't that good y'all.
    – user1944596
    May 10, 2013 at 18:21
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    wouldn't it be better to first try to make one cryptocurrency succeed I disagree. If nobody tries, say, proof-of-stake, how can we know whether it will work?
    – Nick ODell
    May 12, 2013 at 4:32
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    Nick does have a point. However, it should really be pointed out that if someone is going to develop a new cryptocurrency, then they should have some sort of philosophical difference. For example, one may argue for a permanent block reward of 50 coins taking a more traditional inflationary stance. Or one could attach identity to the alt coin. It's really bizarre someone thinks they can just carbon copy bitcoin and that it will attach a following.
    – Charles Hoskinson
    May 18, 2013 at 9:27
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    I doubt bitcoin will make a good online currency. There just isn't enough of them. It could be come something to invest in, but not for open use in the marketplace. No retailer is going to want to price their products like this: Cowboy hat $4.50 or 0.045 bitcoins. I certainly don't want to use a currency where all day to day purchases are going to be in the decimals. It's hard to figure out how much things really cost.
    – Simkill
    Jun 14, 2013 at 14:48
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    @Simkill That's just a matter of naming. Bitcoin could well evolve to a situation in which 0.001 BTC will become the default currency unit. It's currently already dubbed "millibit" and many websites already list their prices in "mBTC". If the millibits are getting small, we could perfectly move to a microbit or µBTC.
    – Steven Roose
    Jun 14, 2013 at 15:05
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The point of Feathercoin (and the other alt coins) is to see what works and what can gain traction. Feathercoin is where Bitcoin was in 2009-2010—one FTC is about $0.13.

CoinDesk had a pretty good article on Feathercoin: Feathercoin shows heavyweight potential.

Intro to Feathercoin has a good list of Feathercoin resources.

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Like most alt coins, feathercoin is simply a currency with a different set of parameters than bitcoin. In this particular case, they use scrypt for block generation (which is more ASIC resistant) and the block reward is higher at 200 coins per block. I also believe feathercoin follows litecoin's reward target of one block per 2.5 minutes.

If you believe that the hordes of bitcoins early adopters have alongside the prevalence of ASICs in bitcoin mining are issues, then you may be inclined to adopt litecoin or feathercoin. That said, the market scope is considerably smaller and there really isn't any significant technology differences between Bitcoin and feathercoin thus it's unlikely feathercoin will achieve broad market penetration.

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FeatherCoin unlike any other crypto has an incredible community behind it. You can learn more about it in the official forum: http://forum.feathercoin.com/index.php

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