One Cryptocurrency To Rule Them All

Why most cryptocurrencies could end up worthless

My current hunch is that there will be One Cryptocurrency To Rule Them All. This means that out of all the cryptocurrencies that exist today, all but a handful will be worthless within 5 years, with just one capturing most of the value. The top cryptocurrency could be worth over $1 trillion, maybe as much as gold at around $6 trillion or $7 trillion. It might be the only cryptocurrency with meaningful value. Alternatively, there might be a few others that are valuable, but far less so than the main cryptocurrency.

Other cryptocurrencies could specialize in different use cases, e.g. a private cryptocurrency on a private blockchain for internal use by banks and financial institutions, like what Ripple is supposed to be. Or they could be cryptocurrencies that try to compete with or substitute for the main one but gain little traction.

Currencies are natural monopolies because the usefulness of a currency increases with the number of people who are using it. A currency used by one person is useless, and a currency used by only a few thousand people is still pretty much useless. New cryptocurrencies will struggle to gain traction against an incumbent used by millions of people.