Many Cryptocurrencies Try to Dethrone Bitcoin, but Will Any Succeed?

Monero survived 73 delistings, while stablecoins moved $33T. Here are some of the projects that have tried to improve on Bitcoin and how each attempt has gone.

Developers have pitched a better Bitcoin (

) almost since the day the network launched: coins with cheaper payments, stronger privacy, or a steadier price.

None has taken Bitcoin's place so far, but several have carved out ground on individual fronts, and their track records show what a successor would have to get right.

The place to start is the job Satoshi Nakamoto built Bitcoin to do.

What Was Bitcoin Built For?

Digital cash has a bigger graveyard than most people realize.

David Chaum's eCash pioneered cryptographic payments in the 1990s, e-gold offered gold-backed transfers from 1996, and Liberty Reserve processed billions as a "PayPal for the unbanked."

All three depended on a central operator, and all three ended the same way: bankruptcy, prosecution, or seizure. US prosecutors shut down Liberty Reserve in 2013 over roughly $6 billion in alleged money laundering.

Satoshi Nakamoto removed the operator. Borrowing proof-of-work from Adam Back’s Hashcash and ideas from Wei Dai's

and Nick Szabo’s

, Satoshi’s