Bitcoin Forum

What's the consensus around here on litecoins?

Does anyone have any predictions?
Is it going to bubble?
Is it worth keeping a cache of these just in case?

i fully expect it to fail.

but I'm still holding 250 (~ 1btc) of them ... for fun

The odd is not in LTC's favor, concerns me most is the dev team.

but I still like it, actually, love it.

one of these days someone is going to make a bitcoin fork and totally market it well. you know dump 1million into the project, create hype and anticipation of it coming out.

and that has a chance at PWNing bitcoin

I have been interested to know if litecoin or any other alt coins give you a better return for your hashrate if you will ultimately be converting to bitcoin.

sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't
depends on the value of each at the time, both are volatile, you need to watch and switch at the right times :)

A lot of GPU miners are hoping Litecoin has some value after ASIC comes to Bitcoin
but
Litecoin has a tiny economy (not unlike Bitcoin a couple of years ago) the economy needs to grow or it will not be worth mining them when flooded by GPUs and difficulty skyrockets :)

See below \/

My opinion on litecoin is that it has no technological advancement nor any innovation over bitcoin and is essentially just a clone with a few variable tweaks, so it is utterly useless. On a meta level, the earliest distribution of coins was much more spread out and does not leave quite the massive, manipulative power potential that bitcoin has. But I don't believe that is worth any brownie points in the grand scheme of things.

The hash rate of Ltc network has been surprisingly stable considering the price volatility, probablydue to some kind of botnet, but I haven't read about it.

You can still see a stable return on LTC mining with GPU's.  GPU mining (for BTC) is becoming more unprofitable with recent difficulty increases, especially if you live somewhere with expensive electricity.

I feel that at this moment only one crypto-currency will arise.. but thats just speculation.

Litecoin has already had its time, its gone with the wind just like i0.

if you think there can be more than one crypto coins coexist, litecoin still looks most promising among other alternatives.

if you believe think there will be only one, stay with bitcoin.

And what about namecoins? I think they could be more promising than litecoins.

Both litecoins & namecoins have had their time in the spotlite already, although namecoins i could see a future with even with its near worthless value.

I would disagree :)
Litecoin had a surge in interest a while ago and maintains a good network hashrate, many gpu miners are hoping it will be a use for gpus when asic make them useless for btc mining.
on the other hand namecoin  was designed as a dns system using the same proof of work as Bitcoin, not as a currency.Other alternative DNS systems such as CJDNS seem to be more viable for that role currently.
Most namecoin are just sold onto the market as a bit of "extra income" for miners which causes a continual drop in value.

I think there is still a substantial amount of interest in LTC. It may have a future as long as people continue creating a market for it.

I havent seen any recent progress in the adaptation of LTC into online stores (like btc has been). First you need to find shop keeps willing to take it as payment, next up is the integration into shopping cart systems and such (which nobody does for free), so then lies the hunt for a coder willing to take the job.

All which is nonexistent at this current moment in time for LTC.

actually people have been working on these things and there are businesses accepting LTC
Bitcoin was started 2009
Litecoin was announced here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47417.0 on October 09, 2011, - I think Bitcoin had a bit of a head start

compared to NMC which is not a currency and I see no future for :)
If not for merged mining keeping NMC alive I don't think it would be a part of our vocabulary any more.

I hope LTC does not fail but it is intrinsically linked to BTC.  If BTC prospers, LTC stands a chance.  If BTC fails, so will LTC.

I'm not sure they're this tightly related, for one thing, user community and market's  reaction to post-GPU mining can be a big differentiating factor.

A competitor to bitcoin needs to be fundamentally different... like instead of dedicating computer power to a block chain, dedicating it to gene folding (or something altruistic).

There has been plenty discussion on that, but haven't seen a reasonably good solution.

The thing is, its the same people interested in both.  You will find very few people who shun BTC and love LTC.  It will be the same crowd, just working out which offers the best mining opportunities at any given time.

And that's when LTC's speculative value comes into play: volatility and cheap price.

As a BTC hoarder, I don't like my odds in playing  HYIPs, bets, gambling, loan, etc, I don't like keeping all my btc on a USB sitting in my safe either. I consider LTC as my own BCST  ;)

Because it's so cheap (1:100 after adjustment to totalmax. coins in existence), I can get reasonable exposure without worrying about loosing them all. If it becomes zero, I'll just tell myself LTC pirate got killed in a car accident and took my money with him ;D ;D ;D

But LTC has steadily decreased in value over the past few weeks.  If you bought it for BTC you have lost (especially as BTC has appreciated compared to fiat).I prefer to have my BTC invested in something, earning me money!!

I really don't care that much. High reward is always associated with high risk. (Not BCS&T though ;) )

All LTC does is undermine BTC, slightly.

That's like saying Mars missions are undermining earth, slightly

Of course it will take some resource away, but it increases diversity and improve human's probability of surviving.