Dear cryptoforumers,
Here's comes another "episode" of my ramblings.

I want to discuss on the multiplier effect of bitcoin and why you should also get some good altcoins.
Before that, here are some advertisement..... I mean disclaimers. I am only 3+ months in cryptocurrency and I have no TA or FA skills. However, I have super NA skills. If you don't know the meaning, in stocks, TA is technical analysis where you analyse charts to make smart trades. FA is fundamental analysis. NA is .... noob analysis.

I am not in the financial sector and am not a pro-trader. Just a normal guy and the following is only my opinion. You should do your own research and buy the coins which you think is good. Lose money don't blame me!
In terms of investing in cryptocurrencies, these are the coins you must consider:
1) Bitcoin - this is a no brainer. From the trends, it looks like it will go up more, until bad news comes along
2) ETH - world wide web 3.0. It has great potential and will probably go to great heights too
Now here comes the interesting thing. Besides investing in just bitcoin and ETH, you should consider putting a percentage of coins in other good altcoins. Again, I'm may be seen as bias as most of my funds are in altcoins. I only have 0.5BTC in my hardware wallet.

Anyway, the reason I recommended good altcoins is as follows:
1) Diversify you investment. I guess this applies to any investments in general
2) Some altcoins can go ballistics with thousands of percentage gains!
3) Most altcoins are paired to BTC, resulting in rise of BTC actually multiplying the effect of the rise in altcoins. This is what I want to concentrate on.
Say bitcoin is at USD 1000 and an altcoin is altcoin/BTC 0.010 (face value of USD 10). Now, say BTC rises 10% to 1100 and altcoin/BTC doesn't change at 0.010 (zero % increase). Because the altcoin is paired to BTC, the value of altcoin has also increased! Now it is USD 11! Now in the same scenario, if the altcoin ratio increased 10% (i.e. 0.011) and BTC increases 10%, the actual value is multiplied by BTC's increased i.e. 0.011 x USD 1100 = USD 12.1. (1.1 x 1.1 = 1.21)
Here's a clearer picture:
BTC same, altcoin 0.010 = altcoin value USD 10
BTC increase 10%, altcoin 0.010 = altcoin value USD 11 (1.1 x 1.0 = 1.1)
BTC increase 10%, altcoin increase 10% = altcoin value 12.1 (1.1 x 1.1=1.21)
As you can see, if both BTC and altcoins rises, the gain from holding altcoins is much greater than holding BTC alone! Even if BTC rises and the altcoin drops, the value might not change much depend on how much the rise is against the drop.
Another real-life example is my own holdings, say CLAMS. I first bought clams at 74000 sats on 13/3/2017. At that time BTC was around around USD 1200. Now clams is about 220000 sats. In terms of gains, my clams would have gained roughly 297%. However, note that BTC is now roughly USD 2500. So:
Initial buy, say 100 coins clams: 100 x 0.00074 x USD 1200 = USD 88.8
Profits if BTC is USD 1200 now: 100 x 0.00220 x USD 1200 = USD 264 (297% gain)
Now here comes the great thing, BTC has gain 208%! (USD 2500/1200 x 100%)
So, my 100 clams is worth : 100 x 0.00220 x USD 2500 = USD 550 (619% gain!)(2.97 x 2.08 = 6.19)
So if were to hold BTC, I would have gain a good 208%. However, because I hold clams that is paired with BTC, my gains is actually 619% instead of just 208% for BTC or 297% for unpaired clams!!!
Of course, the above only holds true if the trend of the past 3 months continues. Meaning:
1) BTC is still slowly rising
2) BTC sudden rise leads to a sea of discounted coins to pickup!
3) Once BTC stabilize, altcoins recovers or even gain much more.
4) In most instances, altcoins gains outnumber altcoin loss in terms of percentage and number of coins (i.e. more green coins most of the time and higher percentage gains rather than loss (e.g. 50% gain but only 30% loss)
I'm not exactly sure what would happen if there were sudden bad BTC news as I have not gone through a "Mt Gox" scenario.Due to this noob observation, I am of the opinion that to get greater gains, one should consider some good altcoins. For newcomers, be patient and wait for good discounts.
Again, this is just my observation and I do not know what will happen in the future. Invest safely and hope everybody makes money from cryptocurrencies!
Come, let's discuss and kindly point out any mistakes or errors.

(Boy, I'm having a headache.......

)
Well written and good analysis.
I was thinking the same as yours but I lazy to do detailed calculation...