I don't see ETH as an alt-coin. It is a) widely used and held if only for ICOs and creating ICOs, b) the other most commonly traded pair in exchanges (especially for ERC20 tokens, c) has a very substantial market cap butting heads only with Ripple which no one I know actually uses, d) has a very substantial developer community and huge amounts of improvements in the works that will, eventually, be integrated.
I divide my thinking about coins/tokens into two facets each with three categories:
Project type:
- blockchains, DLT, and decentralized consensus platforms e.g. BTC, ETH, IOTA, XRP, XLM
- add-ons and platforms built on top of 1) that need a token but not really an end-user application eg. RDN or DNT
- end-user applications (using assets and derivative currencies) built on top of 1) e.g. STORM or BERRY
Maturity:
a) as yet un-demonstrated, not live, or purely hypothetical instances of 1-3) - typical ICO stage stuff e.g. EOS
b) usable but not established and possibly incomplete - typical of the one to two-year rollout phase of projects eg. SKY, BLOOM
c) widely used with significant utility BTC, ETC, STEEM
I might even add
d) legacy coins
and lump all of the original "shitcoins" and "altcoins" into that category. Controversially I'd put Bitcoin into that category too - unless it can demonstrate it can be put on an evolutionary path I think we are looking at its last year of dominance. Personally, I think the best thing for Bitcoin would be for someone to create a hard spoon of Bitcoin (a spoon is a friendly fork) as a token on top of Ethereum and then everyone decides to abandon the old Bitcoin.
As for investment strategy... I'm 50:25:25 BTC:ETH:other and I'll probably sell BTC to buy ETH but not the other way around so I think BTC will drift lower - either by ETH mooning or me diversifying out of BTC.
Thanks for your thoughts. As for ethereum is or is not an altcoin i dont really care. To your investment stratagy. Dont forget Bitcoin is still the most known Coin. Only because people in the cryptoworld know more, new people prefer bitcoin, because thats what they heard of. Think about Coca Cola or Red Bull Energy Drink. They are not nececarraly the best but the most profitable once.
good point....i dont think many people understand that..