Bitcoin Forum

What is Litecoin? What difference between Litecoins and Bitcoins?
(Litecoin = lite version of bitcoin?)
It is place to exchange between Bitcoin<->Litecoin?
I can't go to litecoin.org/

litecoin is gpu hostile (at present) block chain. it can only be mined with cpu. this means more people with standard hardware (not gpu) can mine them and provide the required network distribution.

litecoin is still quite a new currency, developed within the last couple of months.

exchange can be found at btc-e.com

Sorry for the developers that created the litecoin with good ideas but litecoin isn't a improvement or alternative to the real bitcoin.

In first the 82mio. instead 21mio. Why i should buy the litecoin when the amount is the factor four from the original bitcoin?
Look the gold why guys buy gold for a high price? The answer is that gold is seldom and more a value garantuee than the trillion dollars euros and yens.

If we would use µBTC then we had today 7.5 x 10 E 12
This is enough for the whole world.

Then the GPU mining issue. I don't understand the problem because the advantage of GPU mining is even importand because the supercomputer of the world could have too much influence and the normal user don't have a chance to mine bitcoins.

For me the bitcoin is the real one and the system don't have big weakness.
I also don't understand the panic of some users that the bitcoin will not be more popular and need help and activities.
I even mean that too much activities and projects like the litecoin could make the bitcoin more complicate because the users will more and more confused see it in this thread.

Please guys let the bitcoin as it is and don't found litecoins and some other shit.
Keep quite tell it your friends and help the developers to create and improve applications for paymence.

"it can only be mined with cpu"
Super!
But how it is possible? GPU can mining simultaneously, but how workproof can be gpu hostile?
What mean "lite" in litecoin? Is lightweight client, not keeping all transaction?

"the advantage of GPU mining is even importand because the supercomputer of the world could have too much influence and the normal user don't have a chance to mine bitcoins."
Is GPU hostile but not supercomputers? How with botnet?

hmm! litcoin.org and litecoin.info seem to be down at the minute. The official Litecoin thread explains most of this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47417.0

It does? I don't see the downtime mentioned anywhere in the thread. :/

I maintain and host both litecoin.org and litecoin.info.

I'm having server issues at the moment, which is why the sites are down. I expect to be moving to a new dedicated server in the coming week.

There's nothing lite about it. They just tweaked the blockrate for quicker transactions and swapped to CPU mining.

Lite means ANYONE can mine Litecoins - you don't need powerful GPU, don't need AMD GPU
You can use any CPU you have and mine coins efficiently!

Lite means system will have less hashpower than Bitcoin (because of CPU mining) - not an issue
Lite means faster confirmations of transactions what is really important for any market or shop
Lite means nobody premined coins for himself so we have fairly distributed coins

About supercomputer hostility: just give Litecoin time to grow. Neither Bitcoin was supercomputer hostile at the beginning.

About botnet: botnet issue is solved pretty easy - identify botnet and block IPs. Forever.

Litecoins are an idea to supplement BTC.  I believe the analogy was 'If BTC is digital gold, then LTC is digital silver'.  LTC also doesn't attempt to compete with BTC resources - anyone mining BTC with their GPU's can mine LTC on their CPU.

LTC has only been around for a few weeks, so of course the 'inflation' is quite high, there is no real economy, etc.  It's purely speculative at the moment, but seems to be the only 'alt-chain' currently that has a chance (nmc is in a league of their own)

Edit:  LTC I believe is going to implement p2pool into the client, so hopefully LTC will be ddos-proof (in theory).

Why people keep spamming idiocies about ip? Wake up, do you know dynamic ip?

Now you are going to reply with ip idiocy 2: ban ip range.

Yeah, let's ban a whole nation.


As for "anyone mining", it's bullshit. Try mining with a Atom or with a i7 2600 quadcore... you still need high end hardware.

Hmm...

I mine with an i7 920 and get ~10kh/s.  Got 600 LTC so far.  Nothing major.

Note: I have no idea how a 920 compares to a 2600.

An i7 920 is a high end cpu, a very good one.

920 is mid range at most. 980-990x would be a high end.

ahh okay, i bought it ~2yrs ago for ~$200, I would have thought it's on the way to being outdated.

Luckily not. I have an even older cpu, a Q9550 and even if the i7 920 and the i7 2600 are of course better, mine is still a good cpu.

Testing it, mining litecoin with a Q9550 at stock frequency (2.83ghz): 11.2khash/s

Something is wrong with your i7 920...

Litecoin is, like any other alternate cryptocurrency, just a scheme to steal the BTC from clueless newbies.

Just ignore it and eventully it will die out, like others before it died already.

Go Solidcoin!

uh??

I don't give a fuck about solidcoin.
And the guy with the scammer tag, the one hosting litecoin sites is you, so, just STFU.

"Go" as in "Yaay, I love". "Solidcoin", as in... uh.. Solidcoin!

Yaay, I love Solidcoin!

I never implied you did, nor do I give a shit.

Are you trying to compare bearing this beautiful tag to hosting a website, condemn me from offering a free service to a project which I believe in, condemn me in some other way, or just be the usual dumbass that you usually are?

So what was my quote doing in your post and why were you talking about solidcoin when this thread is about another scamcoin, in this case, litecoin?

But you just said above you loved it... Confused much?

Yup, scammers tend to believe in scams very much!

Because Solidcoins' centralization beats Litecoin or any other cryptocurrency hands down, in my opinion. The input we as a community get on changes such as subsidy is also amazing. Free advertisement!

I care very much about Solidcoin and my passion for it; it is merely your opinion which I couldn't care less about.

Rocket scientist alert!

But namecoin is not a bitcoin clone.

It can be used as a dns alternative.

No point on reasoning with scammers... They all will try to push their agendas and scam you out of your Bitcoin with their scamcoins.

@JohnDoe I don't see Namecoin an as alternative cryptocurrency, but as another type of thing. Sure, it can be traded, but it uses the Bitcoin protocol for a something that has nothing to do with currency, so your point is invalid.

Ummm... I have dynamic IP from my ISP but IP DIDN'T CHANGED FOR 3 MONTHS!
Also, I'm mining with my AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2 khash/sec in a pool and I'm satisfied with results.
I don't want to earn millions and I will not sell LTC now - I'm patient ;-)


Can you explain me what you saying?
Are you telling me that I should mine BTC with my NVIDIA GPU, dump $$$ in new rig or something else?

I'm saying that dudes like you only want BTC in exchange for the scamcoin they mine, and eventually the scamcoin you are mining will die, and the persons to whom you sold those scamcoin will be out of their BTC.

But by all means, keep at it. Mine scamcoins and dump them, I'm not the one who's going to lose my Bitcoin anyway.

How dare you call our solid coins a scam ??? The dear glorious leader will have you arrested as a political prisoner !

Some lose and some win. Alt chains are nice and fresh at the start but they all eventually die. NMC is on its way to nothing. Prices are 0.014 due to MM. I wonder if there will be something to take Bitcoin's silver place.

I was talking about litecoin, but yeah, you can say the same about solidcoin. and about tenebrix, and about fairbrix, and about geistgeld and about any other *coin.
Altho I believe you are not right about Namecoin as it really is different. Having low value doesn't mean much as there isn't really a demand for the service that it will be useful to, but hopefully that will change in the future. Just wait for ACTA to be approved on Europe and they atrt making arrests and closing warez sites and shit like that. Or they move to Tor, which is slow as hell, or they'll need namecoin.

Take a look at this link: https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_usd

BTC is safe with me ;)

Just a quick observation, Bitcoin is an experimental alternative "currency".  The "experimental" part of it means that people can tinker around with it or (since the whole point of BitCoin is that all the rules are baked in at the start,  of course with exceptions (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script#Splice)) branch off different alt chains to see if there could be an incremental improvements that can be made.  The fact that the alternatives appear to be inferior to BitCoin (so far) speaks incredibly highly to how well the original design was thought out.

I recognize that as soon as Real Money is involved that "experimental" tag tries to get removed rather quickly (after which people start getting jealous of any alternatives, remember that fiat currencies behave the same manner) but as long as things don't get out of hand I welcome experimentation on incremental improvements to what was a surprisingly strong design.

Good thing you solved the botnet problem.  You are aware that some of the largest botnets have 250,000 computers each with dynamically changing IP addresses.  Plus each node is constantly looking for new nodes to infect.  Some nodes go "dark" (botnet lost control, computer taken offline) everyday and new nodes are added.

They aren't a single entity which is easily blocked.  If they were we would have no global issues from botnets (DDOS, spam, password hashing, etc).  The law enforcement division from half civilized countries in the world have cyber crime divisions and they haven't been able to make a dent in the problem.

If litecoin was every commercially viable it would be instantly destroyed at will or double, triple, qudruple spent into oblivion by a botnet operator.  Being GPU hostile it will never have the hashing power to withstand an attack from 10K, 50K, 250K+ computers hashing the block chain for malicious purposes.  

There is something true.

And i read about the Solidcoin on the solidcoin-webpage and i mean it is the "dirty bitch" of bitcoin and the concept don´t make any sense.
I believe that the Solidcoin is the answer of the people who want to see the bitcoin dead because they are afraid to there influence and authority.

The real one is only the bitcoin self ;-)

How Bitcoin solved problem of botnets then?
I know that they were on Bitcoin network.

I wouldn't say Bitcoin has "solved" botnets but Bitcoin is botnet resistant due to its massive hasing power.  Average CPU has say 10MH/s on Bitcoin algorithm (probably less than that when you consider some botnet nodes are entry level and older systems).  Thus 8TH/s is at least 800,000 CPU.  The low performance of the average botnet node (due to specialized hardware like high end GPU) and massive size of Bitcoin network makes a botnet attack improbable but I wouldn't go as far as to say Bitcoin "solved it".

GPU-hostile blockchains make the playing field between average "good node" and average "bad node" much closer.  Achieving parity with an enemy that outnumbers you is likely a bad decision.   Simply put it is far easier for bad guys to amass large amounts of CPU power for "cheap".  Not just botnets, but rogue system admins, EC2 instances, etc.

Are you aware of block locking at every difficulty change (every 3.5 days)

Rogue system admins can loose their job, EC2 instances are not so cheap (even now you need about $200/hr)

And tell me, how much hashing power did BTC network have on the first month of its live?

I think you miss the point it isn't the nominal value it is the relative value.

Say average botnet computer is 10MH/s (generous) on Bitcoin network.
The average "good node" based on btc-pool watch is 500MH/s.

Thus it takes 50 computers to overpower one good node.  Even if Bitcoin was 10% of its current size that would be a challenge for a botnet.

Not if average high end CPU LTC node gets ~15KH/s lets say average Botnet computers are 1/3 as powerful, 5KH/s.  It only takes 3 computers to overpower one average good node on LTC network.  Even if LTC network was 10x, even 100x as large it would still be vulnerable to botnets.

It will always be vulnerable to botnets because the playing field is level and botnets can amasse huge amounts of computing power very cheaply.  The decision to make a chain GPU-hostile is dubious as best.  That vulnerability will become more practical if/when LTC ever begins significant transaction volume.  More volume, more value = more potential gain in any attack.

Block locking won't stop a double spend attack.  3.5 days is an eternity to double spend which only involves spending large amount of coins, performing 51% attack, spending coins again and sustaining 51% attack for 6 confirmations.  Completing double spend on an exchange (tranfering LTC -> BTC and then withdraw) would take only hours not days.

Specialized hardware HELPS blockchains by making it harder for attackers to acquire efficient attack nodes.
Commodity hardware HELP attackers by making it easier to achieve 51% of network power cheaply.

Youre right but:

You said that now it takes 50 computers to overpower one good BTC node.
For LTC is now 3:1 but if LTC network was 100x as large it would be 300 computers to overpower one good LTC node.

I expecting more miners on LTC in future than on BTC because everyone has CPU but not AMD rigs.

And, you can stop any transactions in time of 51% attack. How much will attackers have patience after 2-3 fails?

You think LTC will be not bigger than BTC or double the size of BTC but 100x the size of BTC (and even then it woulnd't be as resistent to botnets)?  

Your right if someday LTC has 160x as many miners as BTC then it would have equivelent resistence to botnets and other commodity malicious CPU power.

Of course with that many miners the block rewards get split to almost nothing per miner.  Transaction volume would need to be hundreds of millions of dollars per day in order for fees to be sufficient to support the hundreds of thousands of miners that would require.

You are technically right.  If LTC had hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction volume it would support a mining/hashing network of hundreds of thousands of miners and that would be sufficient to be resistent today's botnets.


No you can't. That is a fallacy.  After difficulty change an attacker can work on "bad chain" in private.  This applies to any block chain.  You would have no knwledge it is happening until the "bad chain" is 2 to 3 blocks longer than good chain and is published to the network.  It would invalidate the good chain instantly and overwrite any transactions since bad chain began.

OK, you can forbid business transactions bigger than 1k in the first 6hrs after difficulty change right?
I'm not saying that LTC can substitute BTC but for fast small transactions it is ideal solution.

And yes, LTC network has potential to grow that big, because if you spent $0 on your mining rig, its not a problem to have just $10/week (+electricity)

It doesn't have to be in first 6 hours.  The block chain won't be locked again for 3.5 days.  So attacker spending starting hour 7 and then initiates building private block chain and performs double spend once it has larger chain than the legit chain.   If it was that simple to "solve" the 51% dilemma with token effort it would already be solved.

Looks BTC isn't immune to a 51% attack either however the massive size and the "multiplier" by using more efficient hardware (GPU) makes that attack many magnitudes more difficult.

Aham. Thanks for clearing this out  :)

LTC is young crypto currency - time will tell is it good enough for market.
I don't want to invest in AMD rig so I'm sticking with LTC  ;)

A botnet can attack only with it's CPU, because usually infected pc doesn't have a proper gpu or, even if they do, maybe they doesn't have the right drivers or what else, while every computer has a cpu.

Now, if you attack Bitcoin, it's pretty useless, a few GPUs have enough power to stop a whole botnet.

If you attack litecoin or another cpu coin, it will be very effective since ALL miners are cpu miners.

Hello,

I'm currently trying out the Litecoin miner. It seems it's a little too aggressive, can the aggression be tinkered with somehow?

I can't make full use of my GPUs while the Litecoin CPU miner's on. This restricts its usefulness very much.

Lower priority of minerd  ;)

I don´t understand the logic because if it is easier to mine litecoins then the number of litecoins will growing up more quickly -> price is going down -> the interest of litecoins decrease.

The bitcoin mining is better because big organizations and companies can´t mine with their powerful cpu-driven hardware and the freaks with their watercooled GPUs are in advantage and it would be an bad business for companies to upgrade their hardware and buy powerful gpu-driven hardware.

In my optinion the GPU preferation make sense and is important to limit the influence of commercial companies like google or some big financial institutes.

And the performance of litecoin or other bitcoin similar currencies show that the interest and acceptance is very low.
And by the way it is not comparable with the bitcoin self because as the bitcoin was born the community was a lot of smaller than today.
But the litecoin has these community here for advertising and nevertheless the price don´t increase.

Well the rate of LTC (or BTC or xCoin) generation is fixed.  More miners don't mean more LTC.  That is why blockchains have higher difficulty.

Of course the reverse is the problem with robocops logic.   More miners means it is harder to get a single LTC (as the supply is fixed).  Thus if the network is 500x as large then it would be 500x harder to 51% but it also means the average miner would get 1/500th as many LTC.

As mentioned elsewhere, there is a problem with mining with a botnet.  People start to suspect things are wrong with their computer when it starts slowing down like it would if it was using 100% CPU to mine.  I guess if they could restrict it to only use a certain amount of CPU it would be less detectable.  I have noticeable lag even with it set on lowest priority using all cores of my 2600k. 

Also, wouldn't it take a long time for a bunch of small computers to solo mine?  And if using a pool, wouldn't it effectively DDoS the pool, like what happened with BTC Guild?

You can think up all the scenarios you want, but history in economics has shown that factors never previously considered often show up and change the game.  That's the only thing I can predict with litecoin.

No.

1) lower priority @ 100% load is still 100% load.  A smart botnet controller would have the zombies hash at say 40% load which wouldn't even cause the CPU fan to spin to higher speed.

2) They don't need to solo mine.  They can either join a pool (maybe Bitcoin pools have thrown botnetters out of the pool once caught) or they could form their own "private pool".  It wouldn't DDOS them since the communications would be routine not intentional attacks.  If the botnet was too large for a single pool they could use multiple "subpools" either public or private.

So there is no problem with mining using a botnet.  With GPU based chains the limited power of botnet means the profits and options for blockchain attacks are limited.  Against a GPU hostile chain very easy for a botnet to be a significant fraction of the hashing power. 

Well, you basically just confirmed what I was saying on the first point.  Not sure how they'd limit it to 40% CPU or something though.  I would like a way to do that on certain things.

I was under the impression that it'd be prohibitively expensive to get a server for a private pool with ~250k workers.  And that that many workers will kill any of the public pools, even with their multiple servers.  BTC Guild had that problem.  Somebody was obviously using a botnet and it DDoSed them, so now all CPU clients are banned.  I also assumed it'd be damn near impossible to manage 250k computers using a bunch of different pools.  I don't know.  I haven't read about how botnet works since back when they were controlled via private IRC channels, heh.

I think you are confused.  It wasn't botnet mining that brought down BTC Guild.  BTC Guild banned a botnet and then they ATTACKED (not mined but launched a syn flood attack) the major pools in retribution.  The fact that BTC Guild kicked them off indicates that prior to being kicked off they were mining just fine on the pool. 

I guess so.  There was an announcement somewhere along the lines of "Dear botnet owner, the servers can't handle all the traffic from your bots, so I have to block you." so that would be pretty misleading.  Or maybe that wasn't BTCG.  Then a couple days later I couldn't get any CPU miners to connect to BTCG and went into the IRC channel to ask what's up and the admin said they're all blocked on his pool, because of botnets and stale shares. 

I was wondering about the economics of Litecoin...

When Bitcoin's value dropped because of the People's Bank of China's attempt to make buying difficult, the value of Litecoin also dropped. How closely are the prices of Bitcoin and Litecoin connected? And if they are seperate currencies, why should their values be connected?