Too bad they're not creating their own coin, starbucks would be a pretty catchy name.

sounds like a recipe for confusion

“Do you want to meet up and pay me in Starbucks?”

“Sure where do you want to meet?”

“Starbucks”

“yeah i know you are paying me in starbucks but where you wanna meet?”

Is there a cryptocurrency equivalent of "buy 10 drinks get one free" yet?

Burger King introduced WhopperCoin in Russia: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/28/burger-king-russia-cryptocur...

Ethereum smart contracts should let you put loyalty cards on the blockchain, right?

Looks like all the chains will have their own money, also known as gift cards or store credit.

Unfortunately I think that's where we're headed. They will copy the tech, call it "crypto", and now they're in the cool kids club.

Bitcoin, however, will remain king because it's the first (Lindy effect) and it still offers more than any of the clones.

Don't all the chains need their own currency? I was under the impression that both proof of stake and proof of work required that there was some form of native currency so that there was some incentive to secure the network.

Not necessarily. There are also some coins which use methods of securing the network which don't require incentives (ex: RaiBlocks).

Then how does RaiBlocks plan on paying the bills of running a node.

The proposition is that free, instant transfers are so awesome that people will voluntarily run nodes.

I like Raiblocks. It really functions the way that people want Bitcoin to function (free, instant, complete [no dust] transfers).

I suggest you read the white paper if you're interested: https://raiblocks.net/media/RaiBlocks_Whitepaper__English.pd...

It doesn't offer more. It actually offers much less.

I certainly see Bitcoin as a viable "middleman" for trading and arbitrage between all the altcoins. Right now that seems to be the biggest use case.

That's only trading on an exchange though. That doesn't use the protocol.

Not really because transactions in BitCoin take forever to clear.

Your opinion is irrelevant. The market has the last word, and the market has already decided Bitcoin is the most valuable and useful. You can verify this by looking at hash rate, market cap, and distribution (amongst other things). You may not like it, so feel free to downvote me, but the facts are indisputable.

Well thank you for that. Noted. I'm going to give you an upvote just so I can have the satisfaction of seeing other people downvote you for being an asshole.

Yikes, please don't be uncivil even if someone else is, or you feel that they are. I'm sure you realize that it's against the rules here, and that we ban accounts that do it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Do what brings you joy in every day.

Could you please stop posting flamewar-style comments to HN?

I would suggest you don't.