Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has articulated his stance on where the future of cryptocurrency lies:
Ripple, Stellar, and Altcoins are all a distraction. Bitcoin is way too far ahead. We should be focused on bitcoin and sidechains
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) February 23, 2015Three of the biggest players in the business, namely Coinbase, BitPay and Blockchain .info, are all bitcoin-centric. None cater to altcoins such as Litecoin in any way, nor have they seriously considered doing so. The thinking is that Bitcoin is currently by far the most prominent of cryptocurrencies, so it stands the best chance of thriving in the future.
The assumption is that in the future, there will likely be only a single dominant cryptocurrency. Therefore, devoting resources to altcoin ventures is unproductive and distracts the crypto world from its main mission.
As one would expect, many in the altcoin communities--whose members have occasionally been equally vocal to Bitcoiners--have what to say on the matter. Previously, altcoin founders have diplomatically argued that their coin may not be the chosen one, but it is certainly a worthwhile experiment toward discovering the ideal cryptocurrency.
Armstrong's comment didn't only refer to altcoins, for which it can be argued, in many cases, that they are merely clones of Bitcoin with trivial modifications. He also included Bitcoin 2.0 technologies like Ripple and Stellar, whose codebases are reportedly not based on Bitcoin's. Steve Beauregard, CEO of GoCoin--which supports Litecoin and Dogecoin Payments --replied to Armstrong:
@brian_armstrong We are just entering the Blockchain 2.0 era many exciting new developments. Too early to declare #Bitcoin the winner IMHO
— Steve Beauregard (@GoCoinCEO) February 23, 2015Armstrong's comment elicited much reaction, both supportive and critical.
