It's finally time I wrote about Altcoins Talks. If you've been signing up to airdrops or otherwise engage with crypto forums such as Bitcoin Talk, you've probably by now heard of the BCT alternative forum for altcoins. While still a young forum that's only been active for 4 months, it's fast becoming a popular hub for airdrops, altcoin news and crypto discussion.

As of writing, the number of members has nearly reached 8,000 who have posted 40,000 times in 7,000 topics. It's still no competitor to Bitcoin Talk that boasts of 1.8 million members that is close to having 1 million threads, but it also hasn't been running for 7 years either.

What's it about?

BCT-ACT comparisons aside, Altcoins Talks provides a unique opportunity for new coins and ICO's to promote their latest token or project. As the name might suggest, the forum primarily hosts boards for a douzen popular altcoins; Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Zcash, Ripple, Cardano, NEM, IOTA, NEO, Waves, Steem and Dogecoin.

There are boards for every other new coin, established coin, ICO and token, as well as child boards for better known exchanges; EtherDelta, Bittrex , Bitfinex, Binance , Coinbase / GDAX, Poloniex , Kraken and HitBTC. It's goes without saying that the forum aims to build a community around well established cryptocurrencies as well as long-term infrastructure.

How does it work?

There is a points system to calculate the number of ALTS tokens earned as well as karma for spammers and abusers. Forum rank is however purely based on posting activity, as opposed to points or karma. While at present members can achieve up to Hero Member status regardless of bad karma, bad karma does have it's consequences, as explained further down.

Every month the community vote for a Featured Coin of the Month as well as a Featured ICO of the Month, that are then promoted for 15 days. There are exclusive forum-managed airdrops (keep reading) and even an exclusive Whales Only Club.

Karma: Reward/Punish

Negative karma, that was introduced in November last year can remove up to 1,600 points (160 ALTS). Somewhat more damaging is that members with negative karma looses the ability to sign up to the forum-managed airdrops as well as ALTS airdrops and withdrawals.

Although harsh sounding, the karma system is an attempt to retain the quality of posts and overall reduce spam, while promoting a strict adherence to the forum rules:

Notably there are a number of members who regularly post in the airdrop boards who are (perhaps unknowingly) suffering from negative karma (some a lot of it) and therefore won't be able to participate in future forum-based airdrops. Fortunately for these members, there is also a Forum Court to handle disputes of karma distribution.

Exclusive airdrops

So far there has been exclusive forum-managed airdrops from Skraps, Plentix, Photochain, CrowdCoinage, Tiqpit and most notably in my mind BitcoinToken. Not forgetting ALTS, the forum's token, accumulated from forum activity and bounty campaigns.

These airdrop are still open, but if that isn't enough there are airdrop child boards including; referral links, random giveaway, airdrop scams, coins that require wallet installation and more. Unsurprinsgly these are currently some of the busiest boards on the forum.

Royality & Patrons

Like BCT, Altcoins Talks has it's donation options to support the forum and in return effectively buy your own status as Royalty or a Patron. While it may seem strange to some why members would consider this, it's worth remembering that in 2011 the cost of being an official "Donator" on Bitcoin Talk was between $20 and $300, or otherwise $200 to $1,500 as a VIP. This was during Bitcoin's volatile entrance into online cryptocurrency trading.

While that might sound like a lot at the time, the cost as of writing is now around $100k, or nearly half a million for VIP status, as notably the BTC price has remained the same since August 2011. You can probably see where I'm going with this.

You'll be pleased to know that by comparison the current donation requirements for acquiring Patron and Royalty on Altcoins Talks are 0.04 and 0.1 ETH, which as of writing is approximately only $35 or a minimum of $80 for full Royalty.

Is it a good investment?

On the face of it, Altcoins Talks appears to meet the needs and desires of the average crypto-forum user, plus extra. But only time will tell whether this community model will flourish in popularity and consequently increase the value of ALTS. In some ways, this reward model very much reminds me of Steemit and the value of STEEM.

With the price unlikely to be lowered overtime, it's worth considering that a donation to receive Patron or Royalty status is not just an investment in the forum and it's token bonus', but also in altcoin leader Ethereum, if this is how you chose to acquire the status.

In my opinion it's not too different from investing in Bitcoin Talk with Bitcoins 7 years ago, if BCT were to offer it's donators bonus' and if it was a lot cheaper. This isn't to say that Altcoins Talks will become as popular as Bitcoin Talk, but that it could be an opportunity to "get in early before it's too late" and the price becomes unreasonable, fomo aside.

Alternatively, you're not limited to Ethereum, any members holding more than 1,000 SPARTA as well as other influencers also qualify as Royalty. Or if that's not enough, you can get a subscription to an immortals group for regular payment.

Note: The money donated goes almost entirely to supporting this community, marketing the forum and paying for various jobs related to the activity of this forum. Disclaimer: I recently became a Patron in Altcoins Talks as a seasoned airdrop participant and believer of the new community forming there. You're welcome to use my referral link.