Could Cryptocurrency Survive Without Bitcoin?

I had a rather interesting discussion with a few crypto traders on Discord today and thought I would distil these thoughts into a blog post. We were discussing how Bitcoin is the #1 crypto even though it is technologically inferior to newer projects and has less true value compared to other cryptocurrencies.

People argued that Bitcoin was too big to fail, that it has achieved market dominance and everything else follows its lead. Which is true, the data is there showing when Bitcoin falls most coins in the top 10 also fall. When Bitcoin goes on a bull run, other coins in the top 10 also fall as people FOMO buy into Bitcoin and money moves out of other cryptos.

If Bitcoin was to fail, people lost confidence, a hack crippled it or something toppled Bitcoin, how would the rest of the market react and could cryptocurrency survive without granddaddy Bitcoin around?

Initially, the damage would be extensive. Confidence would be shattered, automated sell orders would be triggered, the market would proceed to crash. It would be a Global Financial Crisis level event.

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The effects of such a crash would be felt outside of cryptocurrency, financial institutions, brokerage firms, superannuation funds and more got into the crypto craze and a crash would have real-world effects. People would lose their savings, their homes and it would be catastrophic.

But, cryptocurrency would not die. Like real financial markets, cryptocurrency would recover. There are so many different projects and use cases out there for blockchain and cryptocurrencies, that a newcomer would rise to the number one spot.

A coordinated effort to ensure that there is no centralised market dominator would be underway, whether they could stop a massive project from taking Bitcoin's spot and being in the same vulnerable position? Well, that would be remained to be seen.

Maybe back in 2013 when it was Bitcoin and a few others a crash would have killed the market, but cryptocurrency and blockchain have gone beyond Bitcoin. While it's the dominant cryptocurrency, it is outdated from a technological perspective and has the least amount of utility outside a store of value.

A project like Steem is more poised to benefit from Bitcoin dying than many other projects who also lack utility or value backed by some decent use case.