Alternate cryptocurrencies are a negative-sum game. That is, the people who trade in them, mine them, etc, are spending more money, as a group, than they are making. The miners are spending money on GPU cards, hashing ASICs, and electricity; The traders are in a zero-sum game where every win implies an equal and opposite loss on some other trader’s part; and the scammers are raking money off the top of this sinking pool.

If we accept that the scammers are making money and the miners are covering expenses, that means everybody else, on average, is losing. Maybe they make money on a particular day, like a lucky gambler – but in the long run, just like the gambler. the odds are against them and the house gets richer as, on average, the gamblers get poorer.

The only way out of ‘negative sum game’ is a cryptocurrency that, in the long run, continues to gain in value. So far well over 90% of the altcoins ever launched are dead already and the remainder don’t seem to be showing long-term upward trends.

Anyway; because the above is my basic analysis and belief, I’ve never yet bought altcoins, nor mined them, because I expect that is a money-losing proposition on average. I follow the news because of an interest in the technology and I’ve been looking for / waiting for technological advances. But I haven’t identified any advances likely to result in a positive-sum altcoin.