The existence of Bitcoin underpins the entire cryptocurrency industry. If Bitcoin were ever to be discredited, deemed unsafe, not decentralized, or valueless, the whole industry would collapse. Bitcoin has never been surpassed. In fact, except for Bitcoin, all other cryptocurrencies are altcoins, especially in the eyes of veteran miners who have experienced the era of Bitcoin alone. Altcoins started as Bitcoin imitators, trying to make certain changes, including Ethereum. Vitalik also dabbled with colored coins, started chains from PoW, and raised funds in China. Everything started from Bitcoin.
Around April 12, 2024, due to multiple factors, generally believed to be due to skirmishes between two countries potentially leading to war, all cryptocurrencies fell by an average of about 20%. Binance’s Gainer leaderboard was entirely red, which can be simply referred to as the 412 incident.
Observing the price changes during this period, it is evident that PoW-based coins generally fell less than PoS-based coins. Led by BTC, Doge, LTC, BCH, ZEC, ETC, and ETHW all showed smaller declines. After all, PoW chains involve miners investing real computational power and hardware costs, making them reluctant to sell at low prices. PoS, on the other hand, involves staking a lot of money into servers, generating money from money, which comes relatively easily. ETH, DOT, ADA, COSMOS, and many others—about 50 of the top 100 on CMC—are PoS-based with staking functions.
The basic logic of crypto trading is based on the BTC standard, meaning trading altcoins against Bitcoin’s rate. Suppose you initially have 1 BTC and believe Doge’s upcoming rise will outperform BTC. You convert BTC to Doge, wait for Doge to rise by 20%, and then convert all Doge back to BTC. Your BTC has now increased from 1 to 1.2. This is the essence of the BTC standard.
From then on, you will ignore market fluctuations, undeterred by bull or bear markets, focusing only on the amount of Bitcoin you have—be it 1, 1.2, or 0.8. Regardless of how BTC’s price changes against fiat, it will double every four years, dropping before rising again, achieving all-time highs repeatedly.
Trading based on fiat standards usually ends in losses, with many suffering significant losses. This specifically refers to spot trading; avoid contracts entirely.
Focus as much as possible on coins ranked in the top 100 on Coin Market Cap (CMC) and select from these. The reasons are twofold: the probability of a severe crash is lower, and support from the ecosystem is better. Lower-ranked coins can pose issues like wallet incompatibility, making transactions difficult. Or, a contract address change (as happened recently with an AI sector coin) can leave you stuck, as the old contract still runs at 20% of the price, while the new one operates at 80%.
BTC is unique because its founder remained anonymous from the start, which was a very smart move. This anonymity allowed BTC to be widely speculated upon. Why are there so many asset types on BTC, like colored coins, RGB++, Taproot Assets, inscriptions, runes, and L2 assets still competing? Because no one can come forward to define a roadmap for Bitcoin, and no one knows how it should develop next.
In contrast, ETH’s founder actively participates in global conferences and gives talks, outlining Ethereum’s roadmap and guiding L2’s technological direction. When ETH was attacked by hackers, the founder led the community to fork away the attack history and transitioned the consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS. Such influence shows that ETH is centralized. ETH cannot pass the Howey test and is likely to be classified as a security under SEC standards.
If you created a coin and promoted it, it would seem inappropriate. However, if a coin is decentralized, you can promote it freely. You just like Doge, you can promote it as you wish.
BSV’s CW also lost a lawsuit this year. Some in the community see this as positive, believing CW’s departure signifies BSV becoming truly community-driven. Regardless of BSV’s future, the departure of the founder is a significant indicator.
Another example is ETC and ETHW. Both were forked by Baory, a controversial figure, but their market value, price, and TVL are notable. During the 412 incident, these two coins showed resilience. Although buying them is risky due to lack of technical updates and low GitHub activity, their prices remain intriguing. ETC and ETHW are truly without founders and are PoW coins.
Additionally, since Ethereum transitioned from PoW to PoS, the ETH/BTC exchange rate has been declining, from nearly 0.1 to around 0.05 now.
Let’s take a simple comparison of the CMC top 10: