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Surfing on the Internet and reading blogs on crypto currencies makes you feel that participants at least agree on something: Crypto is the best place to invest for the future.

However, the crypto community appears to be much more fragmented when it comes to define the best strategy how to.

It is fine that each poster promotes its own views and ultimately its favorite coins. Internet is free speech territory and crypto assets are probably the most libertarian inventions in the history of mankind. Bitcoin is not even 10 year old and nobody really knows where we are headed to.

The fast increasing number of investors is reshuffling the crypto world. There is more money at stake and more people voicing their points. The days when the Bitcoin community was about some happy few are long gone. It is now about merry many!

A few years ago, Bitcoin was the main topic on all crypto forums. Today, newbies often qualify it as slow, outdated and expensive. They tend to prefer established altcoins like Ether, Litecoin and Ripple for speed reasons. Or they invest in ICOs as new white papers are published every week.

Newbies must be respected for two reasons. Firstly, because we were all noobs once. Secondly, because crypto assets are all about network. A coin that is supported by a vast crowd of fools will be more valuable than one being promoted by a handful of crypto experts.

Bitcoin’s weight in the total crypto market capitalization stands at an all-time low of 33%. It’s a sign that its leadership is challenged. Indeed, part of the community seems to consider that practicability is an important feature that Bitcoin no longer represents. They have a point. Buying a coffee with Bitcoin could cost you the price of a bottle of fine wine.

The longstanding crypto investors still like Bitcoin for being a store of value. There is a scarce number of coins, it is decentralized, its algorithm was never hacked, etc. We all know the pitch.

Part of the community could argue that some other coin has similar attributes and regard it as a better store of value. Remember that it is still early in the crypto era. Nothing is fixed and it’s all about the network.

Right now, Bitcoin still benefits from the first mover advantage, a strong community of supporters and the dispersion of investors on too many different coins.

A successful challenger would thus need to have 3 qualities: practicability, store of value, network effect.

For qualifying as practical, a coin needs to enable fast and cheap transactions. Its technological roadmap should show a clear way forward and the developers must have a proven history of successful upgrades.

The notion of store of value is more subjective. So far, let’s assume that investors have highly regarded Bitcoin thanks to its scarcity, decentralization, robust network and fair incentives. Regarding the last point, money creation based on Proof of Work (POW) still appears to be fairer than the Proof of Stake (POS) method to the eyes of the majority. Finally, the liquidity of the coin also brings value but it mostly depends on the size of the network and decentralization.

The network effect is also hard to measure. The overall ecosystem supporting the coin must be assessed: developers, investors, exchanges, regulators, merchants, etc. Furthermore, the network potential relative to other coins does matter. Can a coin grow its network faster than others for some reason?

This is why Japan and its crypto friendly legal framework must be mentioned. The crypto market is now wide open for Japanese institutional and retail investors. Also the legal tender status of crypto currencies makes it easy for Japanese merchants to accept crypto currencies, thus enabling a potentially fast adoption.

The attributes of Bitcoin, leading altcoins and Japanese coins are summarized in the following table: