Ask HN: What's stopping anyone of you from creating a bitcoin alternative?

[machilin]

Judging from the prices of Bitcoin and more recently, Litecoin and the creation of new currency, it dawned on me: What's stopping me or anyone of you guys from creating your own "currency" and making a quick profit? Here's the plan:

1. Create a new "currency", claim it's better than bitcoin. 2. Mine as much as you can when the difficulty is low or pre-mint some coins yourself. 3. Wait for a while as prices for your currency rises. 4. Cash out and PROFIT for the win.

Maybe, I should spend the weekend hacking away of my new "bitcoin alternative". What do you guys think?

[IanCal]

It's been done, repeatedly.

The problem is you need to get other people to use it and buy it, that's the tricky bit. You're making a huge assumption with this:

"3. Wait for a while as prices for your currency rises."

You'll need to get it used enough that someone puts it on an exchange, or otherwise convince people to give you money.

To make huge amounts of money, you need to convince either lots of people, or a few really rich people.

It's also potentially illegal.

[machilin]

Agreed. But the way, I see it there are a lot of coins you might not have heard of, novacoin, terracoin... Nobody ever buys anything with them, but their prices are on the rise. As long as you make it, people will want it.

[IanCal]

"Nobody ever buys anything with them, but their prices are on the rise."

But you've already picked the successful few out, lots of other coins never got to that point.

However, the fact that you're designing a scam makes this whole thing a lot easier to answer:

The thing that is stopping me is that I'm not a scumbag. I don't want to trick people out of their money.

[anigbrowl]

Nothing, it's just a matter of marketing and persuasion...which is what bothers me about Bitcoin. It's a potlatch currency.

[mtgx]

You will have to mine the new currency yourself. Are you willing to waste all that electricity for the promise that you "might" cash out if your currency achieves any sort of success?

You can try, but I doubt it will be as easy as you think it is.