Nothing is stopping it. There are already a bunch: Litecoin, Solidcoin, Ixcoin, PPCoin, Terracoin, (to a lesser extent) Devcoin, and (to an even lesser extent) Namecoin. Seemingly the only thing stopping them from overtaking Bitcoin is Bitcoin's popularity.

Just that the masses currently agree that bitcoin is 'the' current p2p currency. Nothing would stop the US Gov (or walmart!) from making/publicizing its own bitcoin competitor which would instantly, immediately, crush bitcoin. (Why use bitcoin when you can use usgovcoin, all other things being equal)

So my bitcoin-based new business will depend on a popularity contest??

I believe more in a energy-bound trading value for the future, much like the petro-dollar. Why not solar-coins, based on the value of solar energy ( GWh based ) traded on the markets? We all consume energy, right?

All your web business depends on popularity of HTTP.

bitcoin has a global appeal, which usgovcoin wouldn't have.

Maybe a walmartcoin then. Nothing like buying sporting goods with p2p currency. I think it would do pretty well!

In one word... Trust.

bitcoin FAQ covers this: nothing.

Link: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#What_if_someone_creates_a_new...

QED.

Take my advice (and prediction too): Energy backed currencies will be the future. Not now, but in 50-100 years.

Gold ( used to back currencies now) is also popular, but it has also _some_ intrinsic value attached to it. But at some point the switch will be made so that the currencies will be backed by the amounts of energy reserves/production.

And dollar is backed by nothing but trust and actually dollar is nothing but numbers in computers: some of dollars has paper form but it is minority as far as I know. I am not saying that you are not right. I personally see why bitcoin might succeed. By some aspects it already succeeded having in mind that their total value is 200 milion dollars (am I right?). Question is if people will trust more centralized currencies or decentralized.

Energy backed currencies? Energy is in a constant state of flux from low to high-entropy states. And 50-100 years from now, energy will be the one thing that isn't in short supply, given that the sun sends more of it our way per year than we've used in human history: see http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf - page 10: 480 exajoules (EJ) strikes the Earth per 90 minutes. Convert that to the yearly number, and compare to worldwide energy consumption in the year 2001 of 430 EJ, bearing in mind that we didn't use much before the 19th century.

So you're a SMAC player? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meiers_Alpha_Centauri

I'm sure Firaxis wasn't the first to think of this idea - but it does make sense as energy has intrinsic utility and value. If not pure energy, then definitely currency backed by resources that create energy (ie, solar farms, gas/coal mines, nuke plants, etc).

Bitcoin has a current lead in attention and investment. Even if a better cryptocoin is devised, by the time it's proven its advantages, Bitcoin could adapt them.

Also, in order to appeal to the proven Bitcoin audience, new cryptocoins might in fact attempt to be complementary to their 'older brother' Bitcoin -- fix some of the issues in certain domains, but interoperate. (They might even find it useful to make some of their initial distribution to exactly the set of Bitcoin holders, as a starting gift.)