Presented at CryptoCon 2014 - Sydney

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Adam Poulton

Secretary - Bitcoin Association of Australia

Alt Coins and

Innovations that use a Blockchain

Talk Outlines• Broad Outline of AltCoins

• Assume you have a working knowledge of Bitcoin

• I am not a programmer

• Views are my own

• Some info may be incorrect

• Some values are less of an indicator as some products are still in production.

Bitcoin - The First ‘Alt’Coin?

• Released January 2009

• Was the first time people had a choice in which currency to use

• Was the first time people could trade widely and remotely without having to trust a third party

Alt Coins

• Called “Alt’ as they are basically an alternative to Bitcoin

• They are different to bitcoin in some way

• Prices are generally denoted in Bitcoin ie 1 LTC is 0.015 BTC

Value in Bitcoin and Altcoins

• The value (or price) of an item is how we gauge the benefit or effectiveness of an item

• Bitcoin valued in dollars

• Alts valued in Bitcoin

Value - Portrays Information• Inflation Rate - High or Low

• Security of the network - Secure or Insecure

• Ease of use - Wallets etc

• Hashing algorithm - CPU or ASIC’s

• Number of coins - Lots or a few

• But the main influence on value is?

USERS - Network Effect• Have you used MySpace Lately???

• Number of users

• Number of merchants

• Number of exchanges

• Liquidity

• In Short - ‘Bitcoin is the most valuable cryptocurrency because it’s used by the most people, who use Bitcoin because it’s the most valuable cryptocurrency, because it’s used by the most people, and so on.’

Dollar Value of BitcoinLogarithmic Scale

Number of Blockchain App UsersLogarithmic Scale

Alts and Value• An ‘Alt’ can be better, faster, easier to use, more secure.

• BUT

• If there are;

• No shops accepting

• No exchanges

• No liquidity

• 100 worldwide users

• Would you buy it???

The >300 Others

• There are 300 ‘Alts’ with a value of < $215,000

• There are 200 ‘Alts” with a value of < $30,000

• You have to get to number 9 (Maidsafe) before you reach 10 Million in Value

!PPC!

!DOGE!

!NMC!

!MAID!

!BC!

!XCP!

!PTS!

!MSC!

!VRC!

!BCN!

Market Cap ‘Alts’Peercoin and Lower

!BTC!

!LTC!

!XRP!

!NXT!

!DRK!

!PPC!

Market Cap ‘Alts’Bitcoin to Peercoin

Market Cap in BTCVery small values.

LiquidityVery small volumes

Alts change the Bitcoin Rules• Rules can be changed for the following parameters;

• Inflation

• Hashing algorithm

• Block Rate

• Difficulty adjustments

• Pre mined?

• Privacy

A lot of Similarities• Most ‘Alts’ have a;

• Proof of work

• Distributed blockchain

• Public transaction

• Low inflation rate

Scarcity and Value• Scarcity can be attained by limiting numbers

• It can also be attained by restricting other currencies within a market for a certain product

• Although this then ties the value of the coin to the organisation supplying the product e.g. LTB coin

• Some coins have tried a low total number of coins to create value e.g. 42Coin

42CoinAttempt at high value due to low numbers

‘Alts’ are good for?

• Experimenting with new rules, methods, distributions

• Incorporating features that Bitcoin can’t support

• Expanding on Bitcoin, ie Bitcoin 2.0

Custom Alt’s

• Alts can be made for specific or ‘one off’ purposes

• Custom assets can be created using CounterParty for any number of reasons

• Bitcoin could even be forked to run a festival or a amusement park

Good Alts

• A lot of Alts look good on the surface

• As we know, network effect is the most important thing

• An Alt that continues to rise against Bitcoin, is an indicator of a growing user base, and thus survival

MaidsafeSeems to be gaining popularity

DogeMay be on the way out?

DogeOn Cryptsy

Bitcoin 2.0• The last 6 months has seen the rise of projects

designed to enable digital assets, smart contracts, decentralised exchanges

• These are broadly split into 2 categories

• Using Bitcoin blockchain

• Using a new, specially built blockchain

Bitcoin (Blockchain) Based

• Colored Coins

• Mastercoin (MSC)

• Counterparty (XCP)

• Zerocoin

New Blockchain• Etherium (Ether)

• Ripple (XRP)

• Maidsafe (MAID)

• Next (NXT)

• Bitshares (PTS)

Theoretical advances to Bitcoin • Side Chains

• An ‘Alt’ could run alongside the main blockchain

• It would have different rules

• Bitcoins could go backward and forwards from main chain to side chain

• Would require merge mining and could concentrate mining pools

Theoretical advances to Bitcoin

• Tree Chains

• Instead of the ‘Alt’ Bitcoin running in a side chain, it would run in the main chain

• Each block would be broken down into smaller sections

• Smaller miners would mine a small patch

When is an Alt dead?

• Technically, its probably when the last computer running the network is turned OFF

• In practice, an Alt is dead when it can no longer serve the purpose that people are using it for

Bitcoin V’s Altcoin

• More ‘Alts’ spreads the value of crypto currency across more assets

• More features within or built on Bitcoin will add more users and thus more value