First of all, I hate the term altcoin because it automatically implies Bitcoin maximalism.

Regardless, we hear a lot of gloom and doom talk.
Bitcoin is going to zero!
Altcoins are going to zero!
In order for there to be another bull run altcoins need to die!
Blah blah blah. Nonsense.

All this talk has got me thinking. I grade blockchain projects on a five-point scale:

Application	Decentralization	Inflation	Speed	Community

Which one of these categories is the most important? I've flip flopped on that debate quite a few times. At first, application seemed like the most important. What can the project do? Then decentralization seemed most important. If you can't trust the project how can it have value? There's a case for inflation to be a most important issue. We need to make sure new money gets distributed in a way that promotes decentralization and trust. There are also many out there looking at speed and scalability. Can't get mainstream adoption with 10 transactions per second amirite?

Community

In the end, this is what really matters. Who is using the currency? Community is what gives power to mediums that convey value. Currency has no value except the one we give it.

When looking at fiat currency, this fact becomes even more clear. Notes issued by a central bank have nothing going for them except for community. We've been grandfathered into a broken system of debt slavery.

We used to have to wash our clothes by hand. We used to have to sow our crops with horse and plough. Today we have none of these hardships as we approach an era where all grunt work will be fully automated. Yet, people are still just as poor as they were back when there was no such thing as electric powered appliances. Fiat inflation is sucking away all our gains and propelling value to the top of the pyramid.

The ability to create currency that acts as a store of value and a medium of exchange is revolutionary for this exact reason. We no longer have to buy other forms of property to escape corrupted inflation distribution. Blockchain will allow the gains made by all technological advance (not just crypto) to be captured by the average person. Moore's law will start applying to money itself, doubling in value every year.

Can we even imagine such a thing? Assets that increase in value exponentially over time with little variance? We can already see that this is true today, the variance is caused by manipulation, but the value over a long enough time is extremely consistent and exponential. Bitcoin's half life ensures these cycles last no longer than 4 years even with extremely heavy manipulation and varying supply/demand.

On average, Bitcoin goes about 2x every year. The math doesn't lie.

2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
$100	$200	$400	$800	$1600	$3200	$6400

Look at these numbers very carefully. Bitcoin has hit these targets every year with incredible accuracy.

From this perspective it's easy to see why the "Bitcoin is dead" crowd is filled with nothing but ignorant tunnel vision. No other asset on the planet has ever increased in value this fast and this predictably. Moore's law is surprisingly accurate. In ten years the market cap should be around 100 trillion USD, with Bitcoin worth around 3 million per coin.

But what about other coins?

Thought Experiment

ERC-20 token XYZ has died. The development team is bankrupt. All previously devout holders scramble to sell their stake. Value of each coin tumbles to near zero.

What's the problem with this scenario? Well for one, in order to sell, there needs to be a buyer. Liquidity will be sucked dry very quickly and many people will be left holding the empty bag. No matter how many people sell, every coin still has an owner.

So now we have a near-worthless coin that isn't being developed at all. However, Ethereum is still being developed, so the worthless coin gains some value from development on the main chain. Also products like MetaMask are still being developed, so the worthless coin gains some more value.

Think about how many communities out there are not being represented by their own cryptocurrency. Any of these dead coins can be infiltrated and reborn by a random community looking for a means of value exchange. It doesn't matter if the coin isn't being developed. Its new purpose is simply to provide a quarantined environment to exchange value within a niche community. That community could be anything from a commune to a cult to a fifth grade elementary school class. Their are near infinite communities to go around that could benefit from simple value transfer.

This is why coins will never die. They will always house some kind of community. You might consider it dead because it lost 99.9% value, but someone is still using it, and that's all that matters. If said community has the opportunity to grow, then so to does the value of the underlying asset.

Even the worst ERC-20 token is better than fiat because it has no inflation being distributed unfairly. Most ERC-20 tokens have zero inflation in the first place.

Altcoins can't die while fiat lives.

Communities can't get gutted like corporations can.