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Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh
LOL how you answered your own question with your own post on a related topic. Bitcoin has the advantage of what business class calls "first to market" advantage...all this recent publicity puts bitcoin's brand name ahead of the 10,000 other cryptocurrencies. As a result bitcoin could earn the trust of merchants & customers, to where the other 10000 currencies would not be accepted, exactly like your canadian currency example.
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Thats all fine and well in the real world with tangible goods when you have to deal with real world obstacles like production, distribution, expensive marketing efforts and so on. "First to market" online has also typically meant "first to die" as well. Where are all the "first to market" products online? The first social network? The first search engine? The first browser? The first billing companies? etc. "Trust" and product loyalty play a very diminished role online when anything and everything, including the opinions of mobs (and consequently, actions) and alternative products are a click away.
You can use examples of Ebay or Amazon but behind the dozen obvious examples (though ebay wasn't first in the online auction space), there are millions of examples of first to market companies that are gone or were quickly rendered obsolete by a 14 yr old kid who built something better, cooler, faster and so on.
Of course you are right that products will emerge and dominate a space in the real world. There will ultimately be a number 1 and number 2 and then 30 or some number of products competing for scraps in that product space. But we aren't talking about a tangible good a meeting a real need. Bitcoins aren't solving a real world problem. Bitcoins are a revolt against "the man". Bitcoins are a perceived solution to a perceived problem.
At the end of it all, what makes one currency preferred over another? One word...stability. That again is something that can change in milliseconds online as its fickle perceptions and beliefs of the mob that determine the stability of a currency.