[akra]

As one of the clueless novices on this topic what I fail to understand is that proof-of-stake and other consensus mechanisms have been available for alt-coins now for a little while - yet BTC is still dominant. Is it just because of popularity of BTC? If so I struggle to understand how the market is rational here (not saying it has to be). And do other coins/forks issued with similar rules/characteristics cause a price decrease in BTC due to fungibility? The confusion you speak of may come because people see BTC as the successful coin and see other alternatives may have weaknesses that "are priced in". As a novice, because I assume there's no free lunch, other currencies not using PoW could have weaknesses that BTC does not have hence the price. For better or worse the most successful coin determines what people see as the successful approach to crypto at the time.

To your point I've also seen that some coins may still prefer PoW, and may have mitigated many of the disadvantages of it (e.g. made it harder to centralise mining).

[willbudd]

Imagine you have created a new social media webapp with a few innovative new features not seen elsewhere. Would that spell doom for a now suddenly inferior Facebook/Twitter/etc. Possibly, but the network effect in terms of inertia and critical mass makes that an unlikely proposition.

Moreover, the driving force behind Bitcoin keeping it ahead of the pack so far is the promise of short/medium term profit as an investment vehicle due to the artificial scarcity of its deflationary algorithm. Other cryptocurrencies are better positioned toward forming a long-term solution as a low overhead global decentralized payment platform, but what they offer is more of a collective benefit rather than a strong monetary incentive to any individual backer/investor on an individual level. (Which arguably is just an emergent property of human greed within the regime of unchecked capitalism.)

[akra]

The thing is for me, and maybe that's an opinion, is that the investment vehicle due to scarcity is the more important utility right now. Given all the QE and low interest rates across the board worldwide that is the real value prop. There is a need for an asset such as this to preserve wealth, and other assets such as gold have market mechanisms to stop them running away too far I think (e.g. gold certificates, reserve banks willing to liquidate, etc).

In first world countries for most people I would argue for all its faults the banking system is "good enough". In my local country can send money to people almost real time and pay by card quickly and easily without fees. Sure there is still room for improvement, but for most average people the need to change is low. Especially when I still need the banking system as "primary" to pay my taxes, settle my bills, etc - you know all the "real stuff".