Bitcoin Forum

What has Litecoin been up to?

http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/27654z/activities_in_the_litecoin_world_addendum_to/

Dear Litecoin Community,

You may have seen recently I made a post titled “Litecoin State of the Union”, which was made in order to clarify what was going on in the world of Litecoin, and calm peoples fear about asics, price, as well as let folks know what the LA and other community members are working on in the LTC eco-system. With that said, I felt the response for the most part was very positive and really got some of the community members engaged and more knowledgeable of the activities and initiatives that are going on. So I wanted to elaborate a bit on a number of activities that the community is trying to put together as well as areas where we need some help in.

Safe network alliance pledge We are very aware of coinotrons recent issue with the %51 network hash rate. Because of this, we have formed a pledge to pools to take in order to state the will be %28 or below the network hash rate. This is important to prevent time warp attacks on the network (which can happen with any coin, and cause the hacker to fake data and issue fake coins to themselves). Please spread the word to the pool you mine at, and request them to take the LA/LTC pledge for a safer network located here https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=20028.0.

Litecoin video After much back and forth, and starting a video, we decided to scrap the original and start again. One of our Litecoin Association members, Saigoned, stepped up as the project manager and will see this come to fruition. It was decided that we would assign bounties to this project in order to get this complete so we can show folks and merchants. Therefore, 65 LTC has been set aside to help pay for certain aspects of the video (50 of which was donated by the Litecoin Association). Please see https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=19799.0 for more details on the project and bounty. Also, special thanks to Losh11 that help start this initiative!

New wallet splash screen With the up and coming release of the new Litecoin QT wallet (which will be called “Litecoin Core”) ver 0.9, there is an initiative to have a new splash screen made by the community for the developers to use. Warren, lead Litecoin Dev, proposed to get the community more involved and wanted to use new splash screens for both the main loading screen and the testnet screen. Please see https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=19989.0 for more details on this project along with deadlines. NOTE: Current deadline is June 4th, which I have requested an extension so that the reddit community can submit their work.

Electrum Wallet Electrum wallet is still in beta testing to ensure everything is working properly. This is an important project for the Litecoin community as a whole. Pooler is the developer working on this, and is still asking for beta testers as well as public servers to help with electrum. If you would like to help, please see this thread here https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=18608.0.

LTC on Bloomberg Coblee has started an initiative to get Litecoin prices listed on Bloomberg feeds, much like how Bitcoin is already displayed. Roscoe, who is also another member of the Litecoin Association, has taken the lead on this project and is asking for help getting Litecoin displayed on Bloomberg. If you use or know someone who uses a Bloomberg Professional Terminal, please send a message to their online support desk asking for Litecoin price quotes and news to be added. Please show your support in helping him if you can, see https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=19258.0 for more details.

Translators needed If you speak more than one language, your skills are in need for the Bitcoin/Litecoin development teams. Please see https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=19050.0 for more details.

Help with LA pages The Litecoin Association (http://litecoinassociation.org/) needs help in the form of ideas and volunteers to help “spruce up” the LA website. We need ideas for improvements, sections, content, and anything else you think is good to list. You don’t have to be a member of the LA in order to help out, anyone can help! Crazik is the administrator for the website as well as on the LA board of directors. Please contact him if you want to help out (and we need some help with this too, I promised him I would get a few folks hehe).

Merchant basket TheMage (Yes me), started a project in order to create merchant baskets for folks to print out and take with them in order to get more merchants on board to accept LTC and crypto’s in general. This will be the next large project to be completed after the Litecoin video project. See https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=20157.0 for more details. SEE LITECOIN.COM WEBSITE ACTIVITY BELOW!

Website and Client Documentation Dev We have a new intern working with Warren to help out with Litecoin.org as well as end user documentation, seikochan. Her goals for taking the position are * Improving the Litecoin website to be a more inclusive, collaborative project where the community helps by contributing improvements and expanding the content to be more informative. * Improving the documentation for both Bitcoin and Litecoin client software to make it easier for everyone to understand the best practices in protecting themselves against theft and accidental losses that usually are the result of user error. She can use your help with helping create this documentation for both the Litecoin and Bitcoin clients. In addition, she could also use your assistance in the form of translators. Please see https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=17395.0 for more details.

LA meetings and Community Projects Litecoin Association meetings are on IRC every other Sunday and are a completely open forum (anyone can attend). The LA board members and Ambassadors conduct the meeting and go over important information with the community and where we need help from the community. After the board speaks, the floor opens for any topics not discussed. We implore everyone to attend! Here is the sticky for information on which channel to join, time zones for clarification, and past meeting notes https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=19434.0. The Community Projects section is where we create new initiatives for folks as well as try to coordinate marketing campaigns to get companies on board to accept LTC (the merchant basket and Litecoin video as well as previous charities were started in this section). Here is the link to the main boar https://litecointalk.org/index.php?board=89.0.

Final Thoughts I hope to continue to keep the reddit community abreast of activities that the Community, Litecoin Association, and Developers are working on in order to bring more information to the masses. I understand in the past that this information may not have been flowed properly, but I am looking to change that. I want everyone here to know that Litecointalk.org and reddit are one big community, and we need to work together to continue to keep Litecoin as a top tier currency in the crypto world! But we need YOUR help with this, the communities help. So what ever little bit you can do, PLEASE help us make this better! Thank you :)

EDIT Litecoin.com Website
Coblee recently asked the community what to do with the domain name Litecoin.com. We are looking for open ideas from everyone. https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=20168.0
In addition, treasure_finder, has offered a 20 LTC bounty for Litecoin.com development. See here for details https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=20204.0

I don't have the technical know how to make this happen but I know it is important for the future of our coin. Therefore, I'm offering a 20 LTC bounty to the person or persons who are able to make this site a reality. Even if you're not sure what the final site should look like, start the design, make the work-in-progress and let us all provide feedback and work on it together to make it a reality. I don't care if LTC reaches $100 between now and then, I will send you 20 LTC when the site is launched. I invite any other members to add to this bounty, to get ourselves a top quality site that will reinforce LTC as the true silver crypto coin.

Coblee has now donated 100 LTC to this activity, which puts the bounty up to 120 LTC. I am rolling the merchant basket activity into this as well. Stay tuned for details on how this will be distributed.

'FUD WARNING - There seems to be a certain group who go around constantly spreading lies about Litecoin. Most of these new coins coming out are created by the same group who's sole purpose is to pump and dump the coin on you and get as many btc and ltc as they can. Users like 'DARKOTA' can not be trusted DYODD'

1    Bitcoin   $ 7,784,496,172   $ 601.94   12,932,350 BTC   $ 9,915,031   +0.07 %   
2    Litecoin   $ 291,885,629   $ 9.88   29,536,204 LTC   $ 1,007,202   +0.47 %

EXCHANGES
BitEx - The first Hispanic LTC/BTC exchange based in Argentina
Bitfinex - Offering LTC & BTC margin trading
BITTREX - A US based exchange with numerous cryptos
BTC China - Bobby Lee's exchange now offers LTC trading
BTC E - Anonymous trading site for LTC, BTC, & others
BTER - Trades LTC & other crypto
Cex.io - BTC / LTC trading
CoinMKT - A Santa Monica, California LTC, BTC & alt coin exchange
Crypto-Trade - Numerous LTC pairs
Cryptsy - US based & trading over 90 different cryptos
Huobi - Chinese exchange to trade LTC on 3/19/14
KingCoiny - A new security oriented exchange with BTC, LTC, & others
Kraken - US based with LTC, BTC & other crypto
MintPal - 'The fast, efficient & secure cryptocurrency exchange'
OkCoin - A high volume Chinese exchange
Prelude.io - A LTC, BTC, & alt coin exchange by Moolah
UniLTC.com - USD, EUR, BTC to LTC trading
Vault of Satoshi - Canadian based with LTC, BTC & other crypto
Vircurex - LTC & 18 other cryptos traded
VirtEx - Canadian Loonie / Litecoin trading

http://uselitecoin.com/category/merchandise/
http://www.litecoinlearner.com/

I <3 Litecoin  :)



PS I also <3 Bitcoin and Dogecoin for their great community :)


EDIT: This is very important and people fail to understand or realize this. Due to bots, there is really no way to escape the arbitrage bots who tie Litecoin and Bitcoin so close together. It's a blessing and a curse.

Yeah alot of FUD being spread from those alts that want 10 seconds of fame so the devs and their associated pump teams can dump.

Here is yet another fact that LTC doent do, pump and dump. (well we do pump lol).


As Saigonsmokes pointed out, we are working on quite a few initiatives that will help out LTC and for the greater good Crypto's in general.

Bump

Litecoin has huge potential Just a couple of things need to happen and all the garbage will be dispelled

I hope to see BTC/LTC and a third crypto succeed.

Litecoin has huge potential. Bitcoin is great and I own both but the transaction times with Litecoin makes a big difference.

Try buying something with Litecoin. Then do the same with Bitcoin.

This thread is great: https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=18792.0 (https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=18792.0)

Really liked reading this thread.  I love how quickly litecoin gets confirmations compared to bitcoin.  My wallet updates so much faster.

Spend some of your Litecoins:

https://cryptothrift.com
CryptoThrift is an Australian based Bitcoin and Litecoin  marketplace and auction site. We operate globally and have over 5,000 registered users and over 1,500 unique buyer as of the 1st of May 2014 after 6 months of operation.

https://i.imgur.com/fDq8yQF.png

CryptoThrift provides a secure way to exchange goods and services for Bitcoin and/or Litecoin with our secured automated escrow service. We use semi-automated hot and cold storage to secure users funds and maintain security of our wallets. We also utilize great security and CDN services such as CloudFlare and MaxCDN.

We exchange partnership with other crypto services such as BitPos, an Australian based market leader in Bitcoin POS system, and yPool, an alt coin mining pool with thousands of users worldwide.

www.uselitecoin.com (http://www.uselitecoin.com)

https://i.imgur.com/qfCkpau.png

What about some beautiful physical Litecoins?

https://i.imgur.com/thLSy19.png

www.gawminers.com - Litecoin Asic
https://i.imgur.com/XDyP9TN.png

HOW TO BUY LITECOIN

Many people view litecoin as silver and bitcoin as gold, as it is the second largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin.

How to buy litecoin
Litecoin was developed as an alternative to bitcoin, to address some of bitcoin’s perceived shortcomings. It was designed to be ‘lightweight’ and more abundant than bitcoin. In addition, it uses scrypt hashing for its proof-of-work algorithm, which was aimed to make it impervious to ASIC mining, although several companies say they are planning to launch scrypt ASIC miners in the near future.

A total of 84 million litecoins can be produced on the network, which was designed to process blocks faster than bitcoin. If you would like to know a bit more about litecoin, then read this more detailed introduction on how to get started.

Some points of note before you buy litecoin:

Litecoin became an increasing magnet for speculators after bitcoin’s price surge in November 2013 caused people to look to other alternative digital currencies for potential gains.
Some experienced bitcoin investors are using litecoin as a hedge, while late adopters who did not buy into bitcoin view litecoin as their second chance to make a quick buck.
Seasoned bitcoin investors should have no trouble adapting to litecoin, but novice investors may not find it as easy, as the infrastructure is less established than that of bitcoin.
An alternative way of gaining litecoins is by mining them using standard computing equipment.
Always do your own research and do not risk anything you cannot afford to lose.
If you are aware of the risks, if you’ve done a lot of research and you are still willing to enter the litecoin market, there are a number of potential pitfalls and issues that need to be addressed.

Cash for litecoins or bitcoins for litecoins?

Buying litecoins is not as straightforward as buying bitcoins, but this is hardly surprising given the underdeveloped litecoin infrastructure. One of the easiest ways of buying litecoins is to simply purchase them with bitcoins – this approach also happens to be the fastest, and for most users it will be the cheapest option.

Anyone with a stash of bitcoins can easily use them to purchase litecoins on a number of exchanges:

BTC-e
Kraken
Cryptsy
Crypto-Trade
Others are listed on the Litecoin Wiki.
At present, one of the biggest issues facing litecoin is the lack of exchanges willing to deal in it.

There are roughly two dozen litecoin exchanges, but most of them only allow BTC/LTC conversions, making the buying process cumbersome. BTC-E, Bitfinex, Crypto-Trade and Kraken are selling litecoins for euros, dollars and roubles, but availability depends on your location. For example, UK investors can buy litecoins directly from Bittylicious and BitBargain with a domestic banking transfer, but this is not the case in most countries.

You can buy litecoins for fiat on these exchanges:

BTC-e
Bitfinex
Crypto-Trade
Kraken
BitBargain UK
Bittlylicious UK

You may think the most straightforward way to purchase would be to buy litecoin via fiat wire transfer using an exchange, but this can be a tedious process for a number of reasons. Some major bitcoin exchanges like BTC China and Coinbase do not handle litecoin transactions at present.

Speed is the most obvious advantage of using bitcoin to buy litecoin. In theory, it should take just a few minutes, whereas international wire transfers can take days to clear and potentially incur additional costs. The limited number of litecoin exchanges means that the vast majority of potential investors have to rely on international transfers.

An alternative is to buy bitcoin locally, forgoing the hassle of wiring money abroad, and converting it into litecoin. The upside is that you will get your bitcoin sooner and possibly get a better price when you convert it, provided litecoin’s value keeps going up. The downside? You are likely to pay more for bitcoin if you are limited to the local market.

That said, the choice of litecoin wallets is rather limited compared to those available for bitcoin. Most users choose to use the official Litecoin-Qt desktop client, but it has its fair share of foibles, including reported syncing issues. There is also Litecoin Electrum in Beta.

It should be noted that quite a few online wallets charge users for transactions and even plain storage, so be sure to read the fine print.

For longer-term cold storage, you may want to setup a litecoin paper wallet.

It is also possible to get credit card-quality ‘paper wallet’ cards from Crypto Coin Wallet Cards, while a few smaller companies like CryptoVest are already selling physical litecoins or coin holograms.

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/information/buy-litecoins/

'FUD WARNING - There seems to be a certain group who go around constantly spreading lies about Litecoin. Most of these new coins coming out are created by the same group who's sole purpose is to pump and dump the coin on you and get as many btc and ltc as they can. Users like 'DARKOTA' can not be trusted DYODD'

20/06/2014: Litecoin is the most traded cryptocurrency in the world

http://cryptocoins.co/litecoin-is-the-most-traded-cryptocurrency-in-the-world/

This bubble chart shows all cryptocoins and their total trading volume summarized of all exchanges for the last 24 hours on it. The volume is denominated in BTC. Other second currencies like USD, EUR and LTC are getting calculated back to BTC to show the right data. Traded Volume of Litecoin (30734 BTC) is 50% larger than Bitcoin (20566 BTC), as of 20/06.

https://i.imgur.com/UPYunII.png

'FUD WARNING - There seems to be a certain group who go around constantly spreading lies about Litecoin. Most of these new coins coming out are created by the same group who's sole purpose is to pump and dump the coin on you and get as many btc and ltc as they can. Users like 'DARKOTA' can not be trusted DYODD'

Chickun arise!

Today: 23rd June

https://www.cryptocoincharts.info/v2/coins/graphicalComparison


https://i.imgur.com/6ZV2XG1.png



https://i.imgur.com/yT4CcH0.png

This is awesome

LTC is simply a difficulty magnet for merchants, it keeps their trades safe.

All the altcoins have so low difficulty compared to today's ASICs, that if you try trading with altcoin, you risk a double spending attack done by a single person from the basement.

Litecoin 24 hour volume $ 1,306,188   
NXT  24 hour volume $ 60,987

which coin looks dead to you ?

People need to look at history.

Bitcoin's first ASIC hardware started shipping in January of 2013, when the price of Bitcoin was around $14 and virtually the only places you could spend it were the Silk Road and Wikileaks.

When the Winklevii (read: smart money) noticed the huge amount of money that was about to flow into dedicated hardware infrastructure for Bitcoin, they bought in big. They weren't alone. Tons of venture capital groups and investors started to take notice of it. Price boom. Increased media exposure. More price boom. Growth in adoption. All of this coming from the vote of confidence of ASIC manufacturers and miners. The block reward halving which lead to miner hoarding didn't hurt.

So here we are, and Litecoin is in almost exactly the same position Bitcoin was at to start 2013. Except that Litecoin doesn't have the negative press of the Silk Road/black market ties to overcome, it doesn't have to leap all the hurdles of policy and P.R. that Bitcoin did. In a lot of ways, Bitcoin has cleared a path for it. So the barriers that Bitcoin faced aren't all there, anymore. The only real hurdle Litecoin faces is getting itself off of Bitcoin's coattails.

If history repeats and the smart money follows the infrastructure money, we're going to see a lot of positive changes coming Litecoin's way over the next 12-18 months and beyond. I also don't think it's always going to be a year to a year and a half behind Bitcoin...at a certain point, when the public is educated enough about digital currency, the two can co-exist peacefully. But in this current climate of the "get rich quick" mentality, with people hoping for (or trying to create) bubbles in alt coins to profit from, Litecoin is a rock.

WOW, Learnt a lot about Litecoin from this thread!

Keeping updated helps to ensure people will see this thread!

Good work and keep it up!

I cant wait to see BTC over 10K and LTC over 1K each.
This is not pie in the sky hopes, it will happen. Mark my words.

This can easily happen within the next 3 to 5 years.

I'm thinking it will be along that time frame as well!

I would love to see this!

such hashrate , very secure

https://i.imgur.com/N9QtK7f.jpg (http://imgur.com/N9QtK7f)

This is pigs flying in the sky hopes and I hope it happens.

Isn't NXT premined 1 billion?

So there seems to be hoards of Litecoin threads, Either vehemently for it or against it claiming 'official' death. Most of these threads are self-moderating so as to reinforce the views of the original poster. Which is bullshit nonsense.

So here is an unmoderated thread (by myself at least, Forum mods still apply) where you can freely discuss. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=663590.0

My personal views on Litecoin are that it has very little reason to hold the #2 spot anymore.

The majority of the reasons it ascended to the #2 spot are no longer valid arguments.

Sure it was 'ASIC proof', We all know how that worked out.
Sure it wasnt BitCoin. But there is 100's of 'Not BitCoins' now.

It was innovative until 9000 other people did it and improved or experimented with the formula.

The one thing that is still a valid reason for it to retain #2 is seniority and perhaps derivative works

Another interesting way to look at coins would be to rate them by Algo, of all coins using a specific Algo, which is top for each. Now rate each algo by relevance or importance. And that is your new 'top coins'

yes, distributed among 70-80 people initially.  Which sounds bad, but it was available for trade immediately after and you could pick up large sums of it even if not in the original group.  Also, the end result distribution doesn't look much different than BTC.

This thread is self moderated but no threads have been deleted - if I do delete posts, it will be only FUD 1 liner comments and you can see any deleted posts here:

https://bitcointa.lk/threads/why-litecoin-will-always-be-the-number-2-crypto.332288/ (https://bitcointa.lk/threads/why-litecoin-will-always-be-the-number-2-crypto.332288/)

The other thread 'Litecoin is Dead' which you can see here (5 pages):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=658541.0;topicseen

has been heavily edited - pages of posts deleted as you can see below (7 pages - 2 whole pages of posts deleted by Darkota):

https://bitcointa.lk/threads/litecoin-is-officially-dead.331214/page-5

I am all for discussions but when people edit self moderated threads to meet their agenda - then it should be clear for people to see!

I think so too. Litecoin has seniority, but can that alone guarantee its future relevancy?
Perhaps I am wrong, but there are a number of more innovative coins with more energetic user base. I see them closing the gap with Litecoin with each passing day.

Do you really feel the need to make yet another thread? lol

Seriously, this is not needed. Just post on the 20+ page thread or one of the other unmoderated threads.

By the reasoning of point 1 everybody can just make a clone of some ASIC difficult algo and it is supposed to be better than LTC?

if it is a minter game，ltc is the winner
if it is not a minter game，ltc will be dead soon.

Its only a matter of time, not sure if within this timeframe

Energetic user base? I can name no fewer than ten other altcoins I've looked into that had an "energetic user base" that fell flat on their faces within months of their launch. Litecoin has been around for three years...and is STILL #2 by a mile. The only coin to have breathed the rarified air of Litecoin was Auroracoin, which was probably the biggest pump & dump that crypto-currency has seen, yet.

Dogecoin's got perhaps the most vocal and active user groups in crypto. It was launched in December 2013 - it's only been around for six months and it's already bleeding out, in spite of all the social media and marketing. Dogecoin has collected virtually none of the new ASIC hashrate to itself and the price has been on a steady slide, with no signs of ever reversing course.

Meanwhile, look at Litecoin. Still, after all this time, the #2 market cap coin and attracting virtually ALL of the new ASIC hashrate to itself. Nobody should fool themselves, these Scrypt ASICs were made in support of Litecoin.

There isn't a coin out there that's closing the gap. Darkcoin has made price gains but that's because it is the PERFECT pump and dump story. It's got an extremely small float (easier to manipulate the market) and it has a story (anonymity)...but its primary feature is not desirable to most and will prevent widespread adoption. The market where one would think it'd be highly desired - the Silk Road - has not adopted it...because there's no need. So in light of this information, I think it's clear that it's just another in the constantly revolving door of pumps to hit #3 before they're dumped. But there will be Litecoin, still. It was there before, and it'll be there after.

One could argue that Bitcoin survives because of seniority, and seniority is the reason for Bitcoin acceptance, so why not?  Maybe Litecoin is boring because there is no Silk Road, there is no MtGox (that one was close), almost no lost and stolen coins.  Those are likely THE reasons Bitcoin ascended, and are no longer valid arguments, but they played the major parts of making it.  So, both Bitcoin and Litecoin are changing fundamentals, is that a bad thing?

All I see is that both BTC and LTC are growing up, older brother is still young, younger brother is even younger, and the other alts are babies.  BTC and LTC are innovations that are still not understood and/or used worldwide, and I'm still waiting for the next really useful mainstream innovative coin that survives longer than pump&dump (it will happen one day, of course, I'm not saying everything sucks).  And to have a good pump, energetic user base is created on newer coins when needed.

/Slow clap


This is a great analogy. The big brother is young and the younger brother is younger.  :)

More Litecoin News:

http://www.coindesk.com/hive-adds-litecoin-support-new-web-wallet/
https://i.imgur.com/Vq7Zc0n.jpg

Charlie Lees recent Litecoin Presentation @ BTC MIAMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le5ByHtssnc

What about introducing dogecoin into litecoin blockchain?

That was back in January, but it's interesting.

I think the biggest problem I sometimes have with Charles in his public presentations is that he's almost too humble. He'll say something like, "My biggest achievement is convincing people Litecoin has value" and while it's said for the humor value, it's actually really damaging from a marketing standpoint. It says to people, "I basically conned you into thinking Litecoin is worthwhile" and draws attention away from all the legitimate reasons why Litecoin DOES have value.

So that and the "silver to gold" analogy are things I kinda wish he'd abandon, in his public speaking. Charles needs to get to the point where he firmly believes that Litecoin deserves (and has earned) its seat at the table and should be seen as a complement to Bitcoin, not as "Bitcoin Jr." or "Bitcoin Lite."


Charles suggested that months ago and Jackson Palmer (along with most of the Dogecoin community) shot him down. I think the perception was that by merged mining with Litecoin, they were accepting defeat...which they kind of needed to do, to survive.

This is a compelling narrative.

When do the ASICs start kicking in... when will we see 10 fold increase in hash rate?

Well, take a look at Bitcoinwisdom's record of hashrate changes.

First of all, you had the Gridseed ASICs that started shipping out in late January and early February. The network started seeing some pretty significant jumps there as those deployed. In fact, it appeared that a lot of GPU hashrate started leaving the week prior, with the difficulty adjusting down over 20%, twice in a row...only to be followed by a 34% jump the next adjustment.

Jan 30th - 94,496 MH/s

So then came February as the Gridseeds shipped out around the globe. You'd see adjustments with large drops, followed by adjustments with large increases and by the end of February, we were almost right where we started the month. But my theory is that a good chunk of the GPU mining had transitioned.

Feb 28th - 90,059 MH/s

Then came March...and the new "blade" form factor along with other Gridseed-based products. March just SCREAMED "accumulate" to me as the miners that were transitioning from GPU to ASIC poured money into it. The difference in network hashrate was huge.

March 30th - 162,551 MH/s

Most of April was slow...until the very last week, where the network jumped over 50,000MH/s. Why? Innosilicon's A2 Terminator-based systems with 80MH/s performance that dwarfed the Gridseed hardware.

April 29th - 203,086 MH/s

From the end of April until today, since the launch of the Innosilicon systems, we've seen only FOUR decreases and none above 5.5%...the rest have been increases, as those Innosilicon, Zeusminer and Silverfish systems proliferate.

Today - 357,790 MH/s

So before ASICs: 90,059 MH/s
After ASICs: 357,790 MH/s

That's an almost 300% increase in network hashrate (unless my math is wrong, definitely not unheard of), in four months since the first ASICs launched.

Now, consider that the largest form factor ASIC you can currently buy is 80MH/s...and the next salvo of hardware being shipped is likely to be Alpha Technology's Vipers in mid to late July, at 250MH/s each, followed within a month or two by KNCMiner's 250MH/s systems (and then their 400MH/s systems a month or so later).

So yeah...my guess is, we're going to see a total tenfold increase in network hashrate thanks to ASICs, by the end of the year. Of course, there will be losses as miners decommission their Gridseed equipment due to lack of profitability, etc...but the size of the incoming hashrate will dwarf it.

Granted, a factor in the difficulty adjustments is the movement of multipools, but I think there are clear mile-markers with ASICs you can point to (and I don't think multipools have THAT great of an impact on Litecoin).

But we are not discussing the merits of Bitcoin now, are we? That will take another thread and a thousand.

Litecoin positioned itself as the 'silver' to Bitcoin's 'gold', and you have to admit that allowed Litecoin to prosper in the slipstream. Just look at the historical correlation between fiat value. It also doesn't hurt that most of Litecoin's whales are also Bitcoin whales.

However, while Bitcoin's public perception has leaped by the order of several magnitudes, has Litecoin done the same? Has Litecoin distinguished and cemented itself as, to borrow your analogy, the younger brother? Or is it merely a displaced and dare I say, undeserved sense of entitlement?

Consider the community. Take a look at, say, Peercoin. Have you visited their forum? For example, look at the stark difference in how the Litecoin and Peercoin communities handled the video making campaign. Consider the funding, fervor and professionalism. What about Reddit? Look at say, Darkcoin. The first page is filled with new threads from the last 24 hours. Litecoin, on the other hand, has threads that dates back a week. You may find this hard to believe, but some of the third-tier altcoins today have communities that is far more vocal and louder than Litecoin. If you don't believe me, take a look at say, Minerals, and you will see what I mean.

Consider development. Bitcoin has a thriving development community that features some of the best and brightest. As a non-programmer, I sometimes spend hours reading through the threads here - it is that interesting. Ditto for Nxt, Darkcoin, etc. What about Litecoin? I was literally shocked reading this Litecoin wiki entry by Warren Togami explaining why Litecoin is rejecting X11: https://litecoin.info/X11 . The level of wrong and opinions-disguised-as-facts here is something one would expect from people like you and me - not the Lead Dev of LTC.

Finally, a great indicator of Litecoin's presence within the general public. Here's some screen caps of Google's related keyword search data for

• Bitcoin: https://i.imgur.com/YoC0jvL.png
• Litecoin: https://i.imgur.com/KrVax0U.png
• Dogecoin: https://i.imgur.com/0m6msJ2.png
• Darkcoin: https://i.imgur.com/m3Xnpme.png

Things that you noticed from the above:
• Litecoin lags significantly behind Bitcoin - by as much as 30 times less
• Dogecoin generates higher related search queries
• Darkcoin generates up to a third of Litecoin's search volume, just several months after launching - and rising.

Bear in mind, the search terms used fits the profile of people from outside of crypto, and thus, is a great comparative indicator of the level of brand awareness for the four coins.

Let me be clear that I am not a bagholder of any of the coins mentioned above - almost 95% of my cryptos are in BTC. Let me also be clear that I am not likely to return and respond to this thread. I don't usually spend too much time writing - I prefer to read and/or make money.  :)  However, this needs to be said: Litecoin does not have an automatic claim to be the silver to Bitcoin's gold. It has to work and earn that position. While Charlie Lee is definitely an incredibly brillliant, brilliant man, he is not a messiah capable of orchestrating community-wide PR, development and adoption campaigns. Scrypt has lost its shine, and you cannot just depend on giant miners to secure the network (or the goodwill of Coinotron to not launch a double spending attack). Neither can Litecoin just coast along behind Bitcoin.

The sky is definitely not falling - but it is going to rain, and denying it won't turn the dark clouds away (boy, I am so good at making awful idioms).

Whenever I see the "community" argument, I have to shake my head.

What has Dogecoin's fervent, boisterous and "fun" community done for that coin's success rate? It has gone from being over 200 satoshis to like 50 in the space of a few months.

You know what matters? How much money is in it from an investor standpoint, and how much money is in it from an infrastructure standpoint, and the fundamentals of the coin itself.

Did the Bitcoin Foundation have it all together back in January 2013? No...it was founded in September 2012. It certainly wasn't the organization that it is, today. I think the Litecoin Foundation was formed late last year. Does it have a ways to go? Sure...that's a fair statement. I think it'll get there, though. It can learn from the mistakes that the Bitcoin Foundation has made.

I have been involved with a lot of alts. They ALL, at some point, had VERY active communities with a lot of enthusiasm...of course they did. Everyone was involved because they were hoping that coin would be the "next big thing" and they'd get to be the guy buying the sports car with his hoard of coin. That doesn't make them good coins with prospects for mainstream adoption. They have all resorted to pumping and dumping. That "community" you're talking about is a coordinated pump.

Litecoin has the money in it, well and above any other coin that isn't called Bitcoin. A dedicated hardware infrastructure is currently being laid for it that will explode its value to business and investors...and it really doesn't matter how many new posts you can count on the Litecoin reddit page every day. When the mainstream media starts reporting on "the new mining boom" in Litecoin later this year, that reddit page is going to fill up with people jumping on the bandwagon.

And with regard to Darkcoin...it has pump & dump written all over it, to me. Small float, interesting story (anonymity) but virtually no prospects at widespread adoption to support the current price. It's the next Auroracoin, IMO.

Darkcoin will take over soon :)

For some trols Litecoin is dead or dying. Probably they want to lower the price to buy more, because they see the potential in this coin. :)

Do you really expect the mainstream media to be reporting on the 'mining boom' with litecoin? This is first time I've heard anyone speculate that there is going to be any attention from any source other than the regular insiders. It doesn't seem like a very interesting story to me. But maybe I'm just not thinking about it from the right angle. What sort of boom do you expect to happen anyway? Do you expect a big price rise and subsequent boom in mining profitability for those with scrypt asics mining litecoin?

Personally, I hope Litecoin can get it's development in order and start pushing forward technically, but I'm not seeing it here yet.

One thing that jumps out at me as a big positive is the Electrum development. Having Electrum for litecoin will be a big positive I think. It's a great wallet.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

Litecoin is going to dive under $9 next week. Get your buy orders ready, bagholders ;)

Well people have been saying that since Litecoin was created and while it may have been a decent analogy at some point, it's worn a bit thin at this point. A more accurate analogy would be that bitcoin is todays bitcoin, and litecoin is todays gold. Archaic and not very useful outside the fact that it has a large market. Valuable for the sake of being valuable. That is of course unless the Litecoin devs step up and start upgrading it.

I like how you defend litecoin, but there was no need to sink to their tactics by creating a self-moderated thread IMO.

The only people today stating the "silver/gold" analogy are mainly trolls making fun of the slogan. The community trying to change this by a rebranding of sorts.

Also the comments about the devs are really a low blow. Our devs do some fantastic work, and I am personally very happy with the work they do. Litecoin is an established coin, just because someone comes out with a new technology (many times its more of a gimmick), doesnt mean LTC should rush to incorporate it. There are ramifications for doing so, such as possible hard forks. You dont see Bitcoin incorporating this stuff do you? If these new ideas were really that great, you would think the grandfather of all coins would get it into the protocol.


I cant speak for the OP, but I believe that he did so in order to get away from the nonconstructive postings (i.e. trolling). I'm sure if you had a reasonable argument and constructive points he would be willing to entertain them :).

Monero has objectively more reasons to become top 2. You didn't list any tangible reason for LTC to be above XMR beyond "LTC was the first successful alt-coin". There are no advantages over BTC, wereas XMR has advantages over BTC.

Well, I don't mean to offend anyone but I've been asking people for weeks now what the Litecoin dev team have done, or at least what they are planning on doing and you're the first person I've seen step up to even address the issue. I think Litecoin has a lot of potential and I even owned some when it was worth 5 cents(no, I didn't hold unfortunately :P). If Litecoin had more people such as yourself and OP seriously looking to move the coin forward instead arrogantly dismissing any criticisms or questions of what we can expect from Litecoin in the future then I would have more confidence in the coin.

As far as Bitcoin is concerned I don't ever expect any thing but the bare minimum amount of coding to keep the protocol and associated core code base running securely. With the political situation in Bitcoin the way it is and the Bitcoin Foundation's current mandate they're going to be playing defense forever pretty much. I don't think it's in Litecoin's best interest to emulate Bitcoin in that regard and play defense as well. I think altcoins like Litecoin should really be seizing the opportunity to push forward and earn a larger share of the market. Litecoin is in the best position to do this by far, but I don't see the will of the community being there. Maybe I'm wrong. This post made me change my current evaluation of the community from 'zero passion' to 'a few vocal passionate supporters' which is a good thing.

Life would be easier for me if it was clear as day that Litecoin was the one serious contender to bitcoin at this point like it was a few years ago. It would be cool to see that happen. But I'm skeptical.

Isn't Saigonsmokes an LTC advocate? He just used this analogy. Are you calling him a troll? Also for months this has been used by all LTC supporters here including how a gold-silver ratio has to be maintained. Who comes with this stuff?? Next you will say you guys were never really "little brother currency" or "little sister currency" either and that it is just trolls who used the terms ::)

LTC - RxIxP 2014

Endgame for the mother of all scamcoins

http://www.crimemuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/guillotine.jpg

I think it is hard to say which coin will remain where as new coins are always in the works who knows what will happen in the future.  I've been a supporter of BTC for a while and at this point I think it deserves it's place as Number 2 but I'm wouldn't say for sure it will maintain that position 2 years from now is all. 

My instincts say it's likely but who really knows?

That is true. You never know what can happen! Mybe in the future there will be a coin that will be greater than bitcoin.

Simple comparison

Attribtues that I think lead to long term success.

Network:  1-5  users/merchants/install base
Mining Power: 1-5 Security gains by the mining power
Features: 1-5 How many features, multisig, HD, web, distributed assett exchange, turning complete language, aliases, voting, anonymous transactions, digital goods store.
Community: 1-5 How active and involved the community is.
Ease of Use: How easy to use, 1 is only programmers can use, 5 is mom and dad ready.

BTC:
Network:  4
Mining Power: 4
Features:  3 ( based on the fact that counterparty is built on top of BTC)
Community: 5
Ease of Use: 4
Total: 20


LTC Value:
Network:  3
Mining Power: 3 (This may be one of LTC's strong attributes is that people with invested mining equipment don't have many better options)
Features:  1
Community: 4
Ease of Use: 3 
Total: 14

Bitshares
Network:  1
Mining Power: 5 (Because it's PoS)
Features:  4
Community: 3
Ease of Use: ? , estimated a 3
Total: 16

NXT
Network:  2
Mining Power: 5 (Because it's PoS)
Features:  4
Community: 3
Ease of Use: 4
Total: 18

(Feel free to update the values to whatever you think best, I filled them in to the best of my knowledge.)

LTC has no driving force for user adoption.  What is the motivation for an end user to have an LTC wallet?  Right now it's used just for price speculation.   LTC is not different enough from BTC in my opinion to drive user adoption.  Just download NXT to see what a huge difference it is and how when the market is hungry for an alternative to BTC (several years down the road), when LTC is compared to what else is out there I think it's going to lose.

I used to have half my holdings in LTC as of 3 weeks ago.  I moved it into the 2.0 protocols, NXT, counterparty, bitshares.

What makes you say the LTC community is a 4 out of 5? Is it simple number of members? Or are you considering activity and participation in pushing the coin forward? If so I'd probably say it's lower than a 4 based on what I'm seeing these days from the LTC community.

Well, most these numbers are just a gut value and is more of a relative ranking between the currencies than an absolute of a what a perfect community is.  But basically I was going for ranking the total number and how active the members are.  LTC is bigger than NXT and Bitshares but smaller than BTC.  But as I said since this is based on only my own knowledge feel free to adjust the numbers and come to your own conclusion.  The exercise was helpful for me I think to quantify my own rankings.

Yeah, it's an interesting way to compare coins and the factors that make them what they are. I don't read the NXT forum at all but from the little I've seen the community there is very much interesting in adding new features and progressing their technology to keep up with the times. Which is the opposite of what I'm finding from the LTC community unfortunately. Despite TheMage being the first person I've seen supporting LTC progression, no one else seems to care.

That's not really the case.

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0