Bitcoins and Altcoins and Shitcoins oh my!

Recently everything has been going crazy in the world of Cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin are almost actually valuable.
Litecoin are climbing ranks of the most powerful coins.
Bitcoin speculation puts it at $500,000 each by 2030!

Even the rest of the coins are getting massive pushes in price.
Stellar, Bitbean, Ripple, Gnosis, Byteball... the list goes on.

But this piece is about some terminology that confused me for a while.

Altcoin vs Shitcoin.

Everyone reading this by now understands Bitcoin as what it is.
First mover. Value storage. All around the big brother on the block that everyone knows.

Everything else is technically an Altcoin.
Then what, in essence, is a shit coin?

Well, I don't think there's a clear cut definition. I have seen people in the trollbox of BitMex refer to even Litecoin as a shitcoin. Which amuses me as I bought a few Litecoin when they were $4 USD... what are they now? Doesn't seem like shit to me.

But this brings up something interesting.

Coin Fandoms.

There are people out there who boost Dogecoin like it is the single greatest thing since the internet itself and you could not for one second convince them otherwise. BitBean is another example of a rambunctious and proud sub culture of crypto-enthusiasts. Here's a link to their free Bitbean Faucet which contains a chatbox with lots of updates -> http://faucet.bitbean.org/

But this trend is something I find amusing as it is as nonsensical as it is endearing.

These people are fandoming themselves out of money... and they know they are doing it, they have to know.

So i watched a guy in that same trade chat say he would buy a ton of ripple but he didn't like them even though e knew it was going to go up. Which of course I am allowing for bravado and whatnot, but why would you even brag about missing out on making money? That's silly.

But people really do cheer for one over another despite at the most basic they are all just similar lines of code. Even to their own detriment.

So when you hear someone call something a shitcoin, be wary. It could be as valid and valuable as the ones you love.

Tansley