Bitcoin’s success has led to countless imitators, so-called “Altcoins”. According to CoinGecko, there are now 13,553 different coins (as of April 5th, 2022), all of which claim to be better, faster or more environmentally friendly than the original. For us, at 21bitcoin, there is only one digital store of value: Bitcoin. Why? This article got you covered:

In a nutshell: Bitcoin is

the most established, the most resilient, the most secure, the most liquid, and the most decentralized cryptocurrency.

Identity The synonym of the creator of Bitcoin is known, but nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. Was it an individual or a group of people? Shortly after she/he/them got the network up and running, she/he/they disappeared. To this day, there are no solid clues as to who is behind the synonym. If there is no known founder or CEO, nobody can be pressured by a state or company. This is exactly what distinguishes Bitcoin from most other cryptocurrencies. With most other coins, a founder or CEO is usually connected to the project like Vitalik Buterin at Ethereum (ETH) or Charls Hoskinson at Cardano (ADA). Not all states or governments are happy about the possibilities or freedoms that cryptocurrencies offer. Thus, pressure could be exerted by states on the founders of many cryptocurrency projects. Because Bitcoin has no known founder, no pressure can be put on a single entity. Bitcoin is supported and developed by the community.

Security Proof of work (PoW) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin need electricity to validate transactions in the network. The more energy they use the more secure they are. An indicator for this is the hash-rate. Bitcoin has by far the highest hash-rate, which recently reached an all-time high. This means that more miners are contributing to the network and are trying to mine new Bitcoin. You see it’s actually a good thing that Bitcoin uses a lot of energy because it secures the network. In addition, the mining business is growing rapidly. This led to the fact that there are already numerous Bitcoin mining companies listed on various stock exchanges. Therefore, a lot of people assume that Bitcoin will be successful in the long term, otherwise they would not invest large sums of money. This also means that the network gets more secure every single day. In contrast, most Altcoins are based on a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism, where the security of the network depends on the amount of assets staked by individual players. The larger your stake the more influence you have on the future of the project. This in turn leads to centralization, where often a few actors can exert the greatest influence. Influence is also the reason a lot of companies and states prefer proof of stake cryptocurrencies.

Foreseeability The Bitcoin network is a true masterpiece of checks and balances, between miners who verify transactions and node operators who monitor and implement new rules. Due to this and the distributed nature of the network, it is very likely that in 100+ years the same rules will still apply to the Bitcoin network as they do today. It can therefore be assumed that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin issued according to a precisely defined plan. Approximately every 4 years, the supply of new Bitcoin will be reduced by half, so that the last Bitcoin will be mined around 2140, thanks to the difficulty adjustment. If you buy a single sat (fraction of a Bitcoin) today, that part will always be the same share of 21 million. Altcoins are very different in this regard. The rules are usually issued by a central entity and can therefore be changed anytime. Ethereum, for example, has already made many fundamental changes to the original protocol. Therefore, no one can really say how much supply of coins there will actually be, because this can be changed at any time by a few large entities. For a store of value, however, foreseeability is the most important value, which is why Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that can be considered as such.

Decentralization One of Bitcoin’s most critical features — and perhaps its true core innovation — is its decentralized structure. Bitcoin has no central control: no central repository of information, no central management, and, crucially, no central point of failure. Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin nodes are spread all over the world. As Bitcoin’s popularity increases, so does its decentralization. New miners and nodes are added daily, making the network even more distributed. As a result, individual governments or states can only make access to the network more difficult but not ban the network itself. For example, China banned Bitcoin mining, which caused the hash-rate to drop for a short period of time until the miners moved their equipment to another country. In contrast, most Altcoins are issued by a central entity that a state could easily crack down on by seizing the cryptocurrency’s servers or going after the CEO.

“A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. With Bitcoin, I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.” — Satoshi Nakamoto.

Legislation Legislation of crypto assets is a hot topic in 2022. The Bitcoin network itself has little to worry about regulations or bans due to its decentralized nature. This can also be seen in the fact that more and more countries are allowing so-called Bitcoin ETFs. Therefore, only a ban of the consensus mechanism (PoW mining) is put forward, mainly due to environmental concerns. However, such a ban was recently rejected by the European Parliament. Anyway, it would only weaken the Bitcoin network for a short period of time. As we have seen from the example of China, miners would simply move their equipment and mine on another continent. European miners have only a very small share of the hash-rate compared to what China had. There is much more legal risk associated with most Altcoins. The SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) has already signaled that it will classify a large portion of the circulating Altcoins as securities, because due to them, they were mostly issued by a central entity. With very big consequences for many of them. If these coins were to fall under securities law, they would likely no longer be allowed to be offered on many exchange platforms, which would be problematic for the exchanges that sold these coins and, of course, for the token holders, as they would no longer be able to sell them on the major exchanges, causing the price to drop significantly. For cryptocurrency providers, offering a variety of different coins also poses a high legal and security risk. In this context, the legal bureaucracy and uncertainty increases with the number of cryptocurrencies offered. A recent example is Coinbase, who got sued for offering 79 unregistered crypto securities. Bitcoin only is the future.

Two tier system It is not without reason that the crypto space is divided in Bitcoin AND Altcoins. Bitcoin is its own asset class, different and superior to the rest. Bitcoin is the only decentralized network without trusting a third party. This is one of Bitcoin’s greatest properties and distinguishes Bitcoin from everything else.

“Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals.” — Jack Dorsey ‍ This is the reason we at 21bitcoin only offer Bitcoin to our customers. It is the only secure and future-proof cryptocurrency investment. Our capital are our customers, and we deeply care for them. That is why we want to offer them Bitcoin only, in a simple, safe and cost-effective way. We are a professional, fully regulated and secure service provider built directly on top of the future monetary good. We are 21bitcoin: https://21bitcoin.app/en/download (Europe only for now).