The argument is that crypto has little to no intrinsic value and the price is being moved by speculation. In that case, the value comes from how many other speculators are willing to speculate in your currency - more options means fewer dollars buying bitcoin. The fact that pretty much every crypto of non-trivial float trades in lock step with BTC definitely supports the "no intrinsic value" theory.

Sounds like two separate arguments, I don't really see the through line. The value of BTC comes from the mining security, and you cannot mine multiple chains at once with the same hardware.

> The fact that pretty much every crypto of non-trivial float trades in lock step with BTC definitely supports the "no intrinsic value" theory.

They are highly correlated but certainly not lock step, see the 1 month ETH/BTC chart. Assets on the stock market are also highly correlated to each other, so I don't quite follow.

Sure, I mean you're just describing the opposite position, that the price of cryptocurrencies is reflecting some intrinsic value and that speculators have a negligible impact on the price. In that case market forces should eventually reveal some stable winners and all the deflationary stuff that lead us down this rabbit hole applies again.

No I don't see the relationship. Let's assume no intrinsic value for the sake of argument. How do you get from there to "additional coins steal market cap from existing coins"?

Seems easy to craft some counterexample, like "Doge acts as a marketing campaign for crypto as a whole and will lead to net-inflows to the BTC market".

I'm just describing the plausible argument that the original commenter said didn't exist - to that end, it should be obvious that a bullish investor, who believes crypto is the future of finance, holding a balanced basket of crypto investments, might invest less in any individual coin as more potential successes appear that must be hedged against.

> balanced basket of crypto investments

That's fair, but I doubt it would deviate very much from the top 5-10, and that each of them would have significant differences from each other (ie not carbon copy clones). I would argue that most of the value in those top 5-10 was net-new and not a dilution of Bitcoin.

The notion I'm arguing against is that me creating MyCoolCoinX on the fourth page of coinmarketcap is somehow diluting BTC, any more than some new pink sheet penny stock is diluting AMZN.

Doge is an interesting case, in that it is the same tech as BTC with just some parameter tweaks. My guess is that most Doge investors are newer to the market, and wouldn't have otherwise invested but I could be wrong.

> how can you possibly make the claim that BTC was diluted vs the market cap of other coins being net new value?

It makes some sense to me. When BTC was smaller in capitalization it was easier to double your money. Now smaller coins attract dollars that otherwise would have pumped up BTC so growth stagnates. BTC was considered the most stable of them all and I now find those claims somewhat dubious, they're all extremely volatile

> When BTC was smaller in capitalization it was easier to double your money.

Do you mean perceptually, or in actuality?

Perception plays a big part in this. Remember most of this is based on irrational decisions

Opportunity cost and choice.

Dogecoin means more to me than BTC. Good luck convincing me, or those that share my belief, otherwise

If I put $500 into either, it'd be Doge.

That's fine, I don't think you have any evidence for your position though. You could easily make the opposite argument that Doge is basically a marketing campaign for BTC and will bring in more investment dollars than it sucks away. It's not zero sum.

Why would BTC need a marketing campaign? Isn’t it a value store? Or was it a currency? Or is it perhaps a bubble of nothingness that actually would need a marketing campaign?

I have put about $1000 into various cryptos as a hedge, but I fully expect to lose it all and the day can’t come soon enough.

Saying something acts as a marketing campaign != saying it needs a marketing campaign, I'm not sure how you made that leap..

My point is that Doge doesn't necessarily take cash inflows away from BTC, describing a possible mechanism for the opposite phenomenon, not that anything needs a marketing campaign.

Everyone who is buying Dogecoin right now is not buying BTC. That reduces the value of BTC.

Everyone who is buying x is not buying y. That reduces the value of y.