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Ask HN: Cryptocurrencies that you think have a bright future?

10 points by 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB ↗ HN
I’m not asking in terms of investing, but rather in terms of it becoming a functional currency.

I ask because there is a lot of cynicism here(which i share) about Bitcoin but I wonder if there a rosier views for coins with more privacy, lower transaction fees, etc.

30 comments

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nikivi
There's lots of dislike about nano in HN and outside for some reason but on paper it does seem to do well as a currency. https://nano.org
4AoZqrH2fsk5UB
Why do you think that is?
nikivi
No fees to send money due to 'better' consensus mechanism.
akudha
Feeless, instant transfer. You can use it today. Not sure if that alone is enough though.
protoduction
I agree that Nano has potential to actually be a currency, but does it actually matter? Those that buy a cryptocurrency hoping that it will increase in value 100-fold are not likely to actually use it to buy pizza.

What it needs is actual adoption in the real world. I want to be able to buy a pizza with it, but nobody seems to offer it as a payment option yet.

Perhaps what will make it take off is some video game or other digital economy adopting it as their in-game currency. It seems perfect for that.

maps7
Have you tried? I have bought stuff with cyrpto.
gge
its 2021 and the 2017 shitcoins are still being shilled
rmb177
I'm very interested in the Chainlink project ($LINK). Decentralized Oracles providing real-world data on-chain seems to me to be a no-brainer. A good example that's talked about is crop insurance. Aggregate regional rainfall within a certain geographical area from several different sources into a single value, that is then used to guarantee the terms of a smart contract seems to be a pretty useful thing. This type of use case is applicable to any number of decentralized financial products.
washedup
Bitcoin is the only one that's proven itself useful today. Others will be hit or miss, but the crypto world will be more like an ecosystem than anything else, with room for many to exist that solve different problems.

Others that I find useful: 1. Ethereum 2. Link 3. BAT

hggh
Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
yigitcakar
I don't think bitcoin will be a functional currency in its current state since your currency can't be more volatile than the prices of the goods you are using it to buy.
kleer001
> becoming a functional currency

None. At least until a sovereign nation decides to ditch fiat for crypto. The first to do that, I bet, will still treat it like fiat and use all the classical monetary policies. So, it'll be crypto in name only.

Eventually, IMHO, Bitcoin will eat all the money in the world, stabilize at something like 10-15 million per. Then it'll just kinda take over as being more trustworthy than any fiat. Of course countries will try to regulate the heck out of it. But, since it has no president of Bitcoin, it'll survive.

Then, we'll have to deal with the knock on effects of a deflationary currency and all that entails.

randomopining
So government says pay taxes in USD etc? How would people not hold a lot of usd.
keiferski
Probably one that is created by a reliable, trusted entity. If Apple created a crypto currency, for example, I could see it being pretty popular.
m00ny
XLM.

XLM wants to achieve some goals that are just amazing and it works so well. It is there to convert and send money feeless and fast without even the need to have a XML wallet on the recieving party.

https://www.stellar.org/

gt565k
Surprised I'm not seeing Cardano mentioned here.

It has a network of academics working on protocols and R&D and even one of the founders of the Haskell programming language.

IOHK is the company building cardano

https://iohk.io/en/team/philip-wadler

https://iohk.io/team/

PoS consensus protocol https://cardano.org/ouroboros/

They are also one of the few blockchains to use nixos in production

Cardano was founded by Ethereum's co-founder Charles Hoskinson and is a 3rd gen block chain aiming to dethrone Ethereum

gge
Imagine being a HN reader and shilling Cardano. Do you know anything about technology?
tome
Hmm, can you expand?
gge
Cardano is obviously a shitcoin. This should be immediately obvious to anyone in tech
gt565k
It's #4 / #5 by market cap, how is it shitcoin? Please elaborate.

It's about to take over ethereum's market share once smart contracts are released later this or next month.

It's built from scratch with some strong academics in the CS field working on R&D.

gge
> It's #4 / #5 by market cap

Yeah, that doesn't mean anything. Half the coins in the top 30 are shit or outright scams.

Shit: ADA, XRP, LTC, BCH, XLM, DOGE, EOS, NEO, NEM, TRX

Outright scams: BSV, IOTA, THETA, VET

> It's about to take over ethereum's market share once smart contracts are released later this or next month.

> It's built from scratch with some strong academics in the CS field working on R&D.

LOL

Not saying you can't make money trading shitcoins and scams, but if you are actually investing in ADA (which I'm guessing you are since you genuinely seem to believe in it) just retire from crypto.

helgefmi
Could you give a reason for why you think, especially in a technology context, it is a shitcoin?

I'm new to this space, but reading about it it seems quite impressive to me. So enlighten me.

Trias11
I think functional currency needs to be robust, scalable with minimalistic fees and PEGGED to BTC.