
Ask HN: What to look for in a cryptocurrency? - wannabe_miner
Because the potential for price speculation, what would make a cryptocurrency robust? How would you choose where to spend your time (and GPU time) on right now? What are good criteria?
======
Casseres
Monero is ASIC-resistant. In addition to mining it with your GPU, you can CPU
mine it as well.

I think a project that isn't run by a company or DAO, but instead by a group
of developers donating their time and effort for a project they believe in
instead of for a paycheck is a good criteria.

The developers for Monero discovered a flaw in CryptoNote which is what Monero
is based on, and instead of exploiting it and secretly creating coins, they
patched it and told developers of other coins affected by it to give them the
opportunity to patch their coins before publicly disclosing it. I think that
shows they're in it to make a great currency that everyone can benefit from
rather than just trying to make a quick buck.

Monero is fairly mined: No premine or instamine to pay for investors of any
company.

------
fuzzyhobbit
High quality cryptocurrency have strong fundamentals.

Those that have interesting methods of creating demand tend to do well. Those
that simply combine existing features and don't provide compelling use cases
have difficulty sustaining desirable long-term market conditions.

A combination of small, medium, and large market caps may help provide a
properly balanced risk and reward.

------
ararar
I don't understand why we insist on tokens if we have blockchains. A
blockchain renders tokens, whether virtual or physical, obsolete by replacing
them with a simple scalar associated with an account.

------
CamelCaseName
What I look for in a coin is

1\. significant development activity

2\. near-term upcoming catalysts

3\. relatively high "whale distribution" \-- in other words, there are holders
that are wealthy and heavily invested at prices not too much lower than market
price.

Unfortunately in the short term, I am bearish Bitcoin, so I am out of all
altcoins and short Bitcoin.

However, if you find any interesting coins that meet those criteria, please
let me know!

