"I suspect most people who have heard of Bitcoin don’t even know alternatives exist." True.<p>In a world with fiat, bitcoin is king due to liquidity. In a world without fiat, it's much easier to consider alternatives. Personally I'd like to see a wallet that holds many currencies, and can do all the conversion automatically.<p>"priced in ___coin? okay"<p>"You want to pay with ____coin? sure!"<p>"You only accept ___coin? no probs!"<p>And apps like <a href="http://shapeshift.io" rel="nofollow">http://shapeshift.io</a> can help with background conversions.<p>Thus, the long-tail of crypto becomes more relevant.<p>For me, it's not a battle of bitcoin, rather it's a battle of "either/or" (now) vs "both/and" (future.)<p>I also think the future is coming faster than we think. People will want bitcoin alternatives, especially people that want to make money and think there are better coins that can do that (and will give them a try.)<p>add:<p>to give an example of this war, I placed a link to <a href="http://snapcard.io" rel="nofollow">http://snapcard.io</a> in reddit-bitcoin for a shop owner in France wanting to accept digital currencies. Result: -1 downvotes, 4 hours ago. Why? I presume because they are a multi-crypto POS startup.<p>Bitcoin is full of the same people that were trashing it when it first came out. Now they are trashing any alternatives. I don't want to be part of that. They're neither cool, nor smart.