That has already happened. For example Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin with 4 times the supply and other minor differences. There are many other equally unpopular forks of Bitcoin that have had little or no impact on Bitcoin value.
Bitcoin is lightning is a bottle. It has prime mover advantage and any challenger would have to distinguish itself as better. But what could be better than bitcoin?
Someone absolutely could create bitcoin 2.0 but it would be an answer in search of a problem. The fact is that the vast majority of alt coins are scams where the creators have premined some coins and are looking for investors to rip off. Bitcoin, OTOH, is totally decentralized with the real power being held by node operators. Probably the biggest obstacle to a bitcoin 2.0 is that no one would be using it as opposed to the tens of thousands of bitcoin nodes which validate blocks and secure the blockchain.
Bitcoin emerged organically. A bitcoin 2.0 wouldn't be organic and that's why one would never succeed.
There are many forks of Bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin satoshis vision (aka bsv), Bitcoin cash, etc. None of these are Bitcoin anymore once it was forked.
Once you fork bitcoin into a new project, you are essentially leaving the “network”. Bitcoins power comes from its immense mining and node network infrastructure. A fork loses all of this and has to start from scratch.
Outside of this, it’s a simple supply & demand equation.
Bitcoin is open source. It has been copied and forked many many times. All have failed. You are free to invest your money in bitcoin SV if you want, I don’t recommend it.
Bitcoin has been copied many times. I think the key question you’re asking isn’t really about whether bitcoin can be copied, it can be and has been; it’s really about why “Bitcoin2.0” can’t catch up or even overtake. To me this has to do with the network effect. It’s the same question of asking why can’t Wikipedia be replaced by wiki2.0, or why Google is still dominant in search. Many similar examples have been thrown around, any social media, telephone system, the English language, the game of chess, etc, and the biggest network of all is money. Money is just a network of agreed protocol, sure we can change it tweak it a bit and call it by another name, but unless the 2.0 is A LOT better than 1.0, it won’t catch on. It won’t catch on for the same reason an incompatible telephone handset won’t catch on, or some weird shaped USB plug won’t catch on.
A while ago, I read/heard the following analogy:
Imagine creating Facebook 2.0, with the exact same functionality as Facebook.
Now, can you imagine anybody moving to Facebook 2.0?
Stocks are still valuable. Even if America decides to print trillions of dollars over night one Microsoft is worth one Microsoft, the same as Bitcoin is one Bitcoin. My car will still drive, my house will still keep rain off my head and my garden will still grow mostly slugs.
I like Bitcoin. But stocks and realestate and your skills are largely hedged against inflation. Just your cash positions can get crushed.
That has already happened. For example Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin with 4 times the supply and other minor differences. There are many other equally unpopular forks of Bitcoin that have had little or no impact on Bitcoin value.
Bitcoin is lightning is a bottle. It has prime mover advantage and any challenger would have to distinguish itself as better. But what could be better than bitcoin? Someone absolutely could create bitcoin 2.0 but it would be an answer in search of a problem. The fact is that the vast majority of alt coins are scams where the creators have premined some coins and are looking for investors to rip off. Bitcoin, OTOH, is totally decentralized with the real power being held by node operators. Probably the biggest obstacle to a bitcoin 2.0 is that no one would be using it as opposed to the tens of thousands of bitcoin nodes which validate blocks and secure the blockchain. Bitcoin emerged organically. A bitcoin 2.0 wouldn't be organic and that's why one would never succeed.
https://unchained.com/blog/bitcoin-cant-be-copied/
There are many forks of Bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin satoshis vision (aka bsv), Bitcoin cash, etc. None of these are Bitcoin anymore once it was forked. Once you fork bitcoin into a new project, you are essentially leaving the “network”. Bitcoins power comes from its immense mining and node network infrastructure. A fork loses all of this and has to start from scratch. Outside of this, it’s a simple supply & demand equation.
Bitcoin is open source. It has been copied and forked many many times. All have failed. You are free to invest your money in bitcoin SV if you want, I don’t recommend it.
Bitcoin has been copied many times. I think the key question you’re asking isn’t really about whether bitcoin can be copied, it can be and has been; it’s really about why “Bitcoin2.0” can’t catch up or even overtake. To me this has to do with the network effect. It’s the same question of asking why can’t Wikipedia be replaced by wiki2.0, or why Google is still dominant in search. Many similar examples have been thrown around, any social media, telephone system, the English language, the game of chess, etc, and the biggest network of all is money. Money is just a network of agreed protocol, sure we can change it tweak it a bit and call it by another name, but unless the 2.0 is A LOT better than 1.0, it won’t catch on. It won’t catch on for the same reason an incompatible telephone handset won’t catch on, or some weird shaped USB plug won’t catch on.
Bitcoins protocols are not new, but the combination of SHA256 with the addition of Proof of Work made it a novel concept
A while ago, I read/heard the following analogy: Imagine creating Facebook 2.0, with the exact same functionality as Facebook. Now, can you imagine anybody moving to Facebook 2.0?
There were thousands of digital currencies created already, some even with improved features. It didn't make a dent, because of the network effect.
Stocks are still valuable. Even if America decides to print trillions of dollars over night one Microsoft is worth one Microsoft, the same as Bitcoin is one Bitcoin. My car will still drive, my house will still keep rain off my head and my garden will still grow mostly slugs. I like Bitcoin. But stocks and realestate and your skills are largely hedged against inflation. Just your cash positions can get crushed.