Can Other Cryptocurrencies Outperform Bitcoin

An often heard reason for not investing in Bitcoin (BTC) is, what if another cryptocurrency that is better than Bitcoin suddenly comes along and snatches your position?

To refute this concept we must first clarify what is the use case of BTC. Bitcoin does not intend to make Smart Contracts, nor DeFi, nor is it a utility cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s use case is primarily store of value and may eventually, if transfer rates allow, medium of exchange.

As a store of value Bitcoin has proven to be undoubtedly the best solution offered by any cryptocurrency for the following reasons:

It is the first cryptocurrency.

This gives you a network effect as well as a progress advantage simply because you started earlier.

Limited Supply

Bitcoin has a limited and known supply. There will only be a maximum of 21 million BTCs and there will never be more. This makes it a limited supply good. There are less BTC in the world than millionaires which means that not everyone will be able to have a whole BTC.

Largest developer community

It also has the largest number of developers dedicated to its improvement. Its code, which is open-source has more than 30,000 commits and hundreds of contributors spread all over the world. Its development is far ahead of that of any other cryptocurrency competing in the same field.

There is no one behind

There is no central company or entity behind it, as there is in practically any other cryptocurrency. For example, in Ethereum they make hard forks changing the rules of the currency frequently because the Ethereum Foundation has absolute control over their cryptocurrency.

Even if Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, appeared one day, he could not take control of the cryptocurrency even if he wanted to. The system he created is so robust and decentralized that it has become an autonomous system incapable of being controlled by anyone in particular. This would be a disaster for more ambitious cryptocurrencies like Ethereum that still have a lot of work to do, but for the Bitcoin use case it’s perfect.

It is the safest cryptocurrency

Its mining conditions through Proof of Work make it the most decentralized cryptocurrency, which guarantees its safety. BTC has never suffered a 51% attack and doing so would be much more expensive than attacking any other cryptocurrency . At the time of this writing, attacking the BTC network would cost more than $ 2 million per hour.

Bitcoin is immutable

Bitcoin has never been hard-forked. Whenever it has been tried, it has resulted in creating a cryptocurrency with the worst reception, as for example happened when Bitcoin Cash was created. Ethereum every time you hard fork, the old version stops importing and is discarded. BTC, on the other hand, is immutable, regardless of how many times you try to fork it. Its rules are written in stone and will always be the same.

No altcoin is interested in Bitcoin failing

And perhaps, for me the most important point, if BTC fails as a store of value, it will never again trust a cryptocurrency for that use case. To put an analogy, it is as if everyone suddenly decided that the metal platinum is now a better store of value than gold. People who previously had their savings in gold will never trust platinum because it would only be a matter of time before another item appears to snatch their position. Gold has always been a good store of value and its history helps give it strength.

If a seemingly simple use case like the store of value fails, how can we expect another cryptocurrency to achieve its purpose?

Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum could one day surpass BTC in maximum market price, but they have different use cases. Ethereum encompasses a market other than the store of value exactly the same as the Gold market is different (and inferior) to the stock market.