This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. In addition to the cryptosphere showing little sign of competition, so too have I realized that many of the cryptocurrencies we think are redundant are actually quite unique.

I used to own a fair percentage of Litecoin as part of my assets. After LitePay bit the dust and I read a few articles I exited that community. Why? Because the articles convinced me that Litecoin was backed into a corner with nowhere to go. Once Bitcoin scales with technology like the Lightning network and Ethereum continues its journey into smart-contract territory... what place does Litecoin have? I concluded that Litecoin was basically on death row waiting to be executed, especially considering how Charlie Lee exited so gracelessly.

Now I realize the truth. It doesn't matter if Litecoin has the same (or even less) functionality than Bitcoin. It will still be an important part of this financial revolution. Redundancy translates to robustness in a decentralized network. Most variables in the cryptosphere behave differently than we expect because we've been brainwashed by competitive corporate capitalism. This is self-funding open source collaboration; a system that has never before been allowed to exist by the combined greed of humanity.

Think about it. Thousands of people have downloaded and maintained the Bitcoin ledger; every transaction ever made for the last decade. If that's not redundant then I don't know what is. And yet, every blockchain does this. It's not viewed as a flaw. It is our greatest strength for verifying trust, allowing trustless networks to follow in the wake of this incredible feature.

This concept can easily be applied to new chains and forks that have little to no extra functionality. When it comes down to it Litecoin has its own unique community, and that alone is enough to give it value. Every community is different from all the rest. If Litecoin gets pumped, a different set of whales are born.

This is true for all coins, so even though it looks like crypto is horribly centralized because we zoom in and look at them separately, when you step back and look at the whole cryptosphere it doesn't seem so bad, and it will only get better as the years tick by and the Fiat Exit progresses.

The simple fact that Litecoin uses a different hashing algorithm is enough diversity to give it value. For god sakes, SHA-256 was invented by the NSA. Even if SHA-256 is currently unhackable as most believe it is, what do you think will be the first algorithm we try to crack with quantum computing or whatever-else future technology?... Gee, call me crazy, but probably the one that's worth the most money; the one with over 50% of the market cap.

It's become quite clear to me that not only is having thousands of coins useful, it's downright necessary to ensure the survival of the entire space. This isn't something we can take a risk on. This isn't something we want to centralize. We either want decentralization or we don't, but we definitely do, and having a lot of 'redundancies' is a big part of those politics. Don't be a hypocrite like every Bitcoin maximalist out there.

Ironically if you look up the definition of maximalism and minimalism you might come to the conclusion that Bitcoin maximalists would want as many cryptos as possible. Alas, they are just a group of greedy whales justifying why they should become even more wealthy. Even saying the word 'altcoin' implies Bitcoin maximalism. This word will be offensive once crypto goes mainstream. Snowflakes need their safe space.

It's no secret that the value of Bitcoin is tied to the rest. Many people don't like this and wish these tethers would break. I don't think that's possible because as the value of one asset goes up, those trying to enter the market will eventually be priced out. Why would someone buy an asset that's gone x10 when nothing else has moved? This logic is compounded even further in the face of technological complexity and a flood of dumb FOMO money that has no idea what's going on (and never will).

The bubble has already popped, and all the Dot Com doomsayers look like fools. There will be no consolidation. There will be no Nuclear Winter Apocalypse. This is a form of scaling and robust survival, and when you look at what we are actually competing with, monopoly money printed by criminals, it's hard to see how we could go mainstream with less coins than we have today.

Conclusion

Everyone cries out that blockchain needs a killer app to become mainstream, as if undercutting the power of central banking wasn't good enough. It's time to Fexit. The history books will look back at blockchain with the power of hindsight. Redundancy was the first killer app of the blockchain.