We see as a big selling point for Bitcoin and others are that they are scarce. I beg to differ. My reasoning behind this is that with every coin that is created there is more in the pool. If we look to the Dollar and we say that when the Fed prints more money we have inflation (simplistically) then why do we not say this about Crypto and Bitcoin?
In the state we are in now it is hard to tell this is true, there are still Fiat currencies around. If we move to only crypto and Bitcoin takes its place at the head of the table, like so many are predicting, as the one World currency then we have a different scenario.
If Bitcoin is the World currency and Fiat no longer exists then every time you add another competitor or friendly foe you are adding more money to the general pool. The exact same as printing more money. Sure Bitcoin may be the dominant coin but there will still be a dilution and this is what we call inflation.
An example is to say that Bitcoin enjoys the position of the whole World currency everyone uses and then someone decides to create their own in say Venezuela and everyone there starts to use that instead. They trade their Bitcoins in for VenzCoin. Now all those spenders and consuners no longer use Bitcoin but are using soemthing else. The transactions they are making no longer trade into the bitcoin sphere after initial conversion. We now have more money around. That coin gains traction and strats to spill over the borders of said country causing competition for Bitcoin and so on.
While your statement is true - generalising - for cryptocurrencies, it isn’t true for Bitcoin, there is a finite number of bitcoins (21 Million) with each coin being able to be broken down to one satoshi (1 hundred million of a BTC or 0.00000001 BTC). The same holds true for other cryptocurrencies just in various cap sizes. The same cannot be said for fiat of which - in principle - an unlimited amount can be printed.
Thether is one such example in the crypto world, printing of thethers has been rampant and there is no such hard cap it seems.
I would compare it differently, Bitcoin is currently the leader in the cryptocurrency world, so let’s (for arguments sake) state that Bitcoin is the USD of cryptocurrencies, that makes Ethereum the EUR, etc. with the big difference that they are capped in terms of total supply (as opposed to fiat).
Which simply means that in your scenario, Bitcoin is pushed from its number one position and will heavily depreciate in value (possibly down to zero) and as such may cease to exist, unlike in the fiat world (it has happened but fiat is usually bailed out).
There is room for multiple top-dogs in any market place, cryptocurrency is no exception to this. A number of strong coins will arise over time (don’t forget most are a handful or less years old); and the rest will carry virtually no value (not even as store of value) and will simply die out.
As to hazard a guess as to who will survive, that’s a whole other ballgame 
from my point of view this will be the coins that start amassing true use cases that either make them credible currency or that have applications attached to them beyond being a platform for cryptocurrency.
I have several use cases for the block lattice (Nano) for example, that aren’t crypto related but where Nano can play a role. Working on building those, which should give Nano a boost in usage of its coin and which will follow with a more stable position as a coin (provided that what I have in mind actually works of course 
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Something very similar is going on with Ethereum and ERC020; I see more whitepapers now that have a real use case, that use ERC020 and as such will help boost ETH as a currency of trade.
Thanks for the reply no one has ever attempted to on numerous sites. I appreciate the intricacies but seems semantic to me. You make my point by saying Bitcoin is USD Ethereum is EUR. Sure fiat can print more but so does Bitcoin by coming out with exact copies. Ethereum was in the beginning just Eth now how many are there?
Hey I’m with you on the need for the tech I just think people get caught up in it and fail to see when setting it’s value. I think the scarcity angle is just that a selling point that’s way over emphasized because when you come down to the facts it isn’t. Anybody can create as many as they want unlike Fiat all over the world. This adds a wrinkle because now it’s value is set by the masses more granular than Fiat but at its core exactly the same thing. People say this is worth something or they don’t. Like I mentioned just semantics but more dangerous in my opinion.
Always welcome, I love exchanging ideas.
You are absolutely correct that it is a bit semantic at one end and yet …
Sure you can hard fork any coin, but that hard fork doesn’t become the coin, it becomes a new coin and therein I see the difference with fiat. When the new coin comes out, it can do one of 3 things:
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It can replace the existing coin, simply because it is better technology, has more supporters, creates a better value proposition, has a better use case, or any combination thereof. I believe this has happened but the example escapes me at the moment.
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If gains a small following and survives on its own, at least for a while, with its own hardcore supporters (which has been mostly the case so far).
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It has no supporters and dies a slow and painful death in the pits of doom on exchanges and at the back of the pack on live coin watch, until exchanges decide, there is no use case / value proposition behind it and remove it entirely (this is going to happen soon).
In due time, these new coins either establish themselves, or fail, but whatever they are, they are not the original coin. Bitcoin Cash trades at around 10% of the value of bitcoin (and this thanks to some ridiculous price manipulation) and Bitcoin Gold trades at around 1/138th the price of a bitcoin. While both had bitcoins supposed value when they forked.
If you were able to copy fiat then you would artificially inflate that fiat (which is why counterfeiting is prohibited by law), what you can do (by law) is start your own fiat which would follow the same principle of arbitrary agreement on its value until it establishes itself…
I would agree with this statement:
… if someone had made an exact copy, with no changes to the tech, nor the protocol (which both BTG and BCH have actually done), then that coin would carry the same value but then one of the two would die out really fast.
That is what was being proposed under SegWit2X, they had no plans for protection because they saw their coin as an upgrade of Bitcoin, not as a new coin. This triggered the whole debate about Replay Protection.
Having said that, I absolutely agree that the scarcity angle is just a selling point, even in Bitcoin, yes there are only 21M but 21M of nothing is still nothing; so it only has value because we (the users) ascribe it a certain value. I’m not sure if it is more dangerous or if this is simply a matter of human behaviour.
As an example, whether we like them or not, we all mostly agree that a diamond is valuable because it is scarce, and while it is a finite resource on this planet, it isn’t a scarce resource in the universe (there’s entire planets made of diamond material); even on our planet the scarcity is artificial. The The Beers Diamond Company keeps a lot of already mined diamonds locked away in vaults, and only trickle these into the market, just to keep the value high and the demand higher than the supply.
Similarly, at some point, someone had to agree with their neighbour as to what the value of a chicken was (pre money) and this brought forth the barter system; we are in that evolutionary path with crypto at present. You can I agree on a value for a coin and therefore that is its value. Real value will be determined with actual use cases.
I had a point there somewhere but I’m not sure I made it
Now that makes sense to me and you made great points. Thanks for taking the time!
This gets even more interesting when you bring in the novel token mechanics as seen in many of the leading utility tokens. Many tokens are not just the medium of exchange on their particular platform, but provide all sorts of other benefits if you do interesting things with them. Some deliver rewards, unlock new features to the holder, be used as funding mechanisms for the issuer and can be placed in smart contracts to do what ever developers of the future can think up. Features like these increase scarcity by reducing the amount of tokens in active circulation.
But stop before you go hunting for projects with maximum scarcity, the token mechanics must be right to provide the correct balance between scarcity and liquidity. If it’s highly beneficial to hold your coins then no one wants spends them and the lack of supply could make the service too expensive and cripple it.
For good case studies on what scarcity might look like in more complex models than that of Bitcoin, look at Iconomi, Augur, Siacoin, and Factom. In that order too! =)
I was listening to a podcast and they were schilling some ICO’s but one idea was great and they had multiple ways of using the coins which was interesting but I was thinking as you stated. They have to find better ways to get the coin circulating enough to be useful but not to much so people start to hoard.