[nickonline]

> anyone can just create a new blockchain and/or cryptocoin for next to nothing

... and I can take my shiny metal (gold) and mould it into a replica spanish gold ingot, it doesn't mean my gold bar is worth the same as the original in fact it's worth substantially less.

By creating YC Coin, Reddit Coin or Facebook coin you're not increasing the supply of the original Bitcoin you're creating a replica of the original.

In fact, by creating the vast array of coins you have you're actually demonstrating why none of them have value, they're a dime a dozen and none of them are the original bitcoin. But a 'KarmaCoin' adopted by those websites might have substantially more value (but good luck with that!).

[will_brown]

I don’t think creating new community cryptocoins is creating a replica of bitcoin (that’s like saying bitcoin was a replica of earlier cryptocurrencies right?). Obviously I’m not suggesting I’m creating a greater supply of bitcoin, just separate coins entirely with idenical practical functions (stores of value on blockchain traceable on exchanges). But you’ve given me an idea, I think I will create a bitcoin replica (called bitcoin, with 21 million coins) and deploy them on the Ethereum blockchain. People either forget or just don’t know bitcoin itself was given away for free to start, the first recorded purchase was a publicity stunt of 2 papa John pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin, that’s just under $60M today...I think it’s ok to ask why there is such a jump in value, when the functionality is reproducible for nearly nothing right?

As to your point, I agree any of the coins I mentioned would gain value if adopted by the websites, but that’s the beauty of decentralizing, users don’t need permission. And if there was any doubt about the underlying concept I believe Kik just launched its own community cryptocoin, creating 10 trillion and raised $100M on an ICO selling roughly 40%.