{"id":250,"date":"2021-04-26T09:04:17","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T09:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/?p=250"},"modified":"2022-08-03T11:36:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T11:36:27","slug":"the-downsides-of-mainstream-coins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/the-downsides-of-mainstream-coins","title":{"rendered":"The Downsides of Mainstream Coins"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we speak of mainstream coins, what we are referring to is, of course, Bitcoin, but also coins like Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink and others. These are in contrast to some of the newer coins like <\/span>Verge<\/span>, which seek to expand upon the anonymity and privacy shortcomings of the larger players. These giants are all coins with massive market caps and a high price-per-coin, as well as the ones that get the most attention in the media and are shown the most love by institutional investors. This is in addition to being a much more widely accepted form of payment. While these are the coins of note, there are some downsides to mainstream coins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bitcoin<\/b><\/h3>\n

This is something that all coins have in common, but Bitcoin is amplified by the price of the coin and what you stand to lose as an investor. There is very little regulatory oversight when it comes to cryptocurrencies, which means that when bad things happen–such as when exchanges are hacked and wallets emptied, or when hardware wallets are lost or destroyed–there is no recourse for the investor. If you have a substantial amount of funds tied up in Bitcoin and for one reason or another they are lost (and again, this holds true for all coins) they are lost forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Bitcoin, because it is the most widely accepted, widely used, most famous and most valuable coin in the world, is the most resisted by central banks and monetary policy authorities. The idea of a decentralized currency that does not require intermediaries to exchange and which is largely out of the reach of the state goes against the idea of the state as a controller of an intervener in the flow of money. For this reason, many Bitcoin detractors continue to insist that the cryptocurrency will never be allowed to flourish and will always be kept on the periphery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ethereum<\/b><\/h4>\n

There are several downsides to Ehtereum that keep many would-be cryptocurrency investors from putting more money into it. First off, Ethereum has had a problem with scaling. While Bitcoin only has a single function, Ethereum, on the other hand, is used like a ledger, a platform for smart contracts and a variety of other things, meaning that there are more opportunities for bugs, <\/span>hacks<\/span> and system malfunction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the programmer\u2019s perspective, Ethereum uses a complicated programming language, Solidity, which people have described as tricky to learn. Here the main issue is due to the relative lack of beginner-friendly tutorials online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ripple XRP<\/b><\/h4>\n

Ripple is often avoided by investors looking for big long-term gains because, unlike almost all other cryptocurrencies, there will never be any more Ripple XRP coins in circulation than there already are (all of them are pre-mined and in circulation). What this means is that, while other coins like Bitcoin (of which there will only ever be 21 million) will start to see major price increases the fewer coins that remain to be mined, Ripple XRP will likely not enjoy the same large increases in price, which makes it far less attractive to investors just getting in now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another downside to consider when thinking about Ripple XRP is the fact that Ripple executives and insiders own a disproportionate amount of the available coins. Ripple Chairman Chris Larsen owns nearly a third of all the coins. CEO Brad Garlinghouse also has substantial holdings, and the same goes for other senior board members at the company. The main consideration here is that since so much is held by so few people, there is a chance that the price of the coins may be overinflated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Ripple is often maligned by cryptocurrency and digital asset purists because it is not decentralized. Unlike something like Bitcoin, which is mined and exchanged by and between users completely anonymously, Ripple was made with the finance and banking industry in mind. It was designed as a go-between rather than a revolutionary mode of exchange and store of value.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Litecoin<\/b><\/h4>\n

Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin, which means it is an iteration of the core code and in many ways is a highly similar coin. Litecoin\u2019s main draw was that it revolutionized the crypto market by improving on Bitcoin, but that uniqueness is no longer as salient. The SegWit protocol that made Litecoin a game-changer, for example, has also now been adopted by Bitcoin, so Litecoin has lost some prestige. In addition to this, other moves have reduced confidence in the coin among crypto investors and enthusiasts over the years, including founder <\/span>Charlie Lee\u2019s sale<\/span> of all his holdings in 2017, which made many people wonder how much faith it was worth having in the coin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other downsides include Litecoin\u2019s preference as a method of payment for illegal services and products on the dark web. Here it is the second most used coin, which makes it harder for retail investors and users, as well as big mainstream companies and institutions, to get fully behind it. The now-defunct Silk Road did a lot to sully the image of Litecoin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Chainlink<\/b><\/h4>\n

Chainlink, like Ripple, also has some ownership issues that make it unattractive for some investors. Nearly two-thirds of the supply of the coin is owned by the parent company and is not freely traded on the market. Chainlink\u2019s oracle network is also still relatively centralized, with only 185 oracles, which means it could certainly stand to be further decentralized. Additionally, because Chainlink is built on Ethereum, any issues with Ethereum could also affect Chainlink.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Conclusion<\/b><\/h4>\n

The coins that we now consider mainstream has been around for several years, and in the case of Bitcoin, over a decade. While they are the most traded and held coins, they are not the only offerings out there and new coins continue to be developed on a regular basis. Many offer to do things like decentralize and anonymize transactions better than their predecessors, and are also much more affordable for people just getting into cryptocurrency investing for the first time. If you have decided to wade into crypto investing and are wondering what reasons you might have to look beyond the dominant names and coins, consider their above downsides before making a decision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we speak of mainstream coins, what we are referring to is, of course, Bitcoin, but also coins like Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink and others. These are in contrast to some of the newer coins like Verge, which seek to expand upon the anonymity and privacy shortcomings of the larger players. These giants are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalcoinprice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}