Bitcoin Forum

When Bitcoin mining becomes only for those rich few that can afford an ASIC, the GPU miners will turn to Litecoin.

Litecoin will have a wider base of miner enthusiasts and its popularity will grow and surpass Bitcoin.

ASICs will kill Bitcoin, the future currency has to be for the masses to be involved with not a new central bank of ASIC elite!

Go ahead. There will be a Litecoin Asic. And it will be more expensive and more Elite.

Increased hash rate == increased network security.

Except if you want a speed boost there is no way to efficiently parallel compute the Scrypt algorithm without throwing loads of money at it to the point it becomes prohibitively expensive. This is proven mathematically in the Scrypt paper - http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf (Litecoin uses Scrypt for this reason)

People will bring out ASICs and FGPAs but unless there is a computer science breakthrough the performance increase won't be dramatic on a per dollar basis. Simply not possible.

So only the rich can afford it? That sure sounds like a better plan than making it affordable and available to the masses.

As far as who mines LTC vs. BTC goes, energy efficiency will determine the strength of the network. Energy efficiency is what determines the evolutionary survival of just about everything.

I suspect MTGOX is accepting LTC for the same reason, not because it has any inherit advantage over BTC.

Mtgox is accepting them because they are currently missing out on a 0.6% fee of millions of litecoins that are traded daily. They are a business and they care about making money... at the moment btc-e is making tens of thousands of dollars per day from these litecoins, and they are still small.

Adding LTC, NMC, NVC, IXC, etc., will just make BTC look cheap and reinforce the notion that we should all just wait and see which one will be the best.

That's how you view because you're still stuck thinking there should be a single dominant cryptocurrency (BTC). The cryptocurrencies offer different advantages... PPCoin being energy efficient, Litecoin using Scrypt, Bitcoin having the most traction and most secure network... it might not ever be the case of one being 'the best'.

Also, investors care about different things. With a range of cryptocurrencies they can invest in a portfolio and spread their risk, or put it all into a risky cheap crypto. And so on.

Increased hash rate == increased network security.

Also, litecoin is certainly not at all immune to ASIC.

I don't agree that "Increased hash rate == increased network security". When ASIC bitcoin mining is widely available, if you have the same number of people mining, the network won't be more secure just because the hashrate is higher. It's all about how much $ it takes for an attacker to come up with enough hashrate to 51% the network. ASICs might eventually increase the network hashrate 50x but that does not mean the network is 50x more secure if it costs the same amount of money for someone to successfully attack the network.

Take for example, if someone found a way to optimize the miner software to be 10x better hashrate and it works on CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs. Then all of the sudden, the next day EVERYONE uses the new miner software and the network hashrate jumps from 50 thahs/s to 500 thash/s. Is the network now ten times more secure?

If that strawman is the best example you can come up with to play devil's advocate, then no. But do you really think that a network composed of <1% of the global GPUs is invulnerable to a virus attack? Bitcoin was nearly attacked this way, but the perps instead decided to profit. Maybe LTC will not be so lucky.

Where did I say Litecoin is invulnerable to attacks? If huge botnet that uses CPU and GPU can successfully attack Litecoin. But botnet operators likely just want to make money, so as like Bitcoin, they will just add to the hashrate and help secure Litecoin.

That may be true. All I'm saying is that getting a lot of CPUs and GPUs together to attack LTCs 4.7 GH/s is going to be easier than going up against BTCs 54 TH/s

Don't forget that mining litecoin with GPUs is about 1000x different in speed. So 4.7 ghash/s network hashrate of Litecoin is about equivalent to 4.7 thash/s network hashrate of Bitcoin. It's still much smaller, but not as small as the numbers make it seem like.

That's only because it takes advantage of the typical PC configuration. Currently, most people are already running LTC on GPUs. When prople start using cloud computing, where will your network power come from? ASICs are made specifically for Bitcoin and will evolve seperately from personal devices. LTC may one day have unique hardware, but it will then be just a BTC imitator.

No you misunderstand and didn't read the link. If someone spends 10k on a Scrypt Asic it won't give them a 100 times performance boost over someone rigging together 10k's worth of top graphics cards.

Some performance boost will be gained but the algorithm was specifically designed so a government entity for example couldn't crack a Scrypt hashed password by simply throwing more money at the hardware because it will become exponentially more expensive. Again, read the paper it's all in there.

MTGOX is the primary exchange for new investors. Adding LTC, NMC, NVC, IXC, etc., will just make BTC look cheap and reinforce the notion that we should all just wait and see which one will be the best.

Why shouldn't we do just that?

Bitcoin is not necessarily the best, just the first.

yes, please, go ahead and speed up scrypt by a factor of 1000 ::)

I wouldn't dump Bitcoin or Litecoin.  But I am dumping the fiat for both ;D

I take it all back. Go Litecoin! Viva la Bitcoin! Drive on Namecoin! There is more than enough room for all of these currencies and more to go to the moon!

Just because people are dumb and buying LTC it does not mean it is going to become useful.

LTC is overpriced almost worthless coin. For every item or service you can actualy buy with it there is 100x more items or services you can buy with BTC.

Wrong parallel. Bitcoin is still alive. You are not living in a parallel universe without Bitcoin. The mere fact Bitcoin was first cryptocoin out there gives it
complete and absolute "cleanup" from all "bad" things that happened around it. What "cleanup" you have for Litecoin? Is there even 1 thing Bitcoin could
copy / paste from Litecoin that didn't originated from Bitcoin? Scrypt? Nope, all you did is changed Bitcoin algo with another one. Is there any concept,
technology, structure, module, ideology, purpose or anything like that in Litecoin but not in Bitcoin? Nope. Copy / paste change few lines of code kids!

All this bullshits from the mouths of you who invested in LTC is about nothing more but attempting to add some value to it so you can profit. Ask anyone
who has no cryptocoins whatsoever what would be his or her choice if he or she decides to jump onto cryptocoin train. Litecoin? Gotta be complete retard
or someone who is versed with investments, and is ready to go with very high risk in order to eventualy profit a bit more than investing in bitcoins.

Not even 6 months ago I had no cryptocoins at all, but I worked for bitcoins. Now I can buy over 1 THashes of ASICs with what I earned, for those same
bitcoins. I don't have to mess with any other currency whatsoever. Once LTC comes even close to allowing such a deal, I'll start taking it seriously.

Until then, keep on dreaming and pray someone else do the job - that is most of Litecoiners are capable of, judging based on lack of LTC purchasing power.

No you misunderstand and didn't read the link. If someone spends 10k on a Scrypt Asic it won't give them a 100 times performance boost over someone rigging together 10k's worth of top graphics cards.

Some performance boost will be gained but the algorithm was specifically designed so a government entity for example couldn't crack a Scrypt hashed password by simply throwing more money at the hardware because it will become exponentially more expensive. Again, read the paper it's all in there.

As it becomes clearer that new money is finding its way to Litecoin rather than drawing from Bitcoin as in they both increase in value at the same time, then we can all site around a campfire roasting marshmellows in peace.  ;D

For all you profit retards, TRC went from 0.0001 to 0.005 in a week or so - that would be $1 to $50, match that! Enjoy money made on LTC because that
is the only thing you can enjoy while dealing with LTC. It ain't gonna buy you much on it's own. The same goes for all other altcoins, with Namecoin having
some value actualy. One can make money on altcoins because and only because there is Bitcoin, but you retards got it the wrong way. You probably think
that altcoins would profit if Bitcoin dies. Dump Bitcoin in favour of Litecoin? Right, let's kill Bitcoin, let's drop BTC price, it would make Litecoin more valuable,
stable and useful - not really, it is exactly the oppossite!

You are blinded by profit to extreme, hence you are aware of nothing except the fact you made some money or you lost some money. For you, nothing else
matters. Since it is so, you would be better selling drugs, doing slave trades, smuggling nuclear weapons over the border and so on - which you would be
doing for sure if only you have balls, mental and physical capabilities. Since you don't have what it takes, making $1000 because external factors caused LTC
price to rise is a major achievement for you. Go tell that to rich people around you, they will laugh at you for being lame, incapable and incompetent.

I think Litecoin's fast transactions and resistance to centralization (more ASIC proof) could give it a leg up with real merchants in the future.  Since people are now getting familiar with the wallets and cryptocoin transactions, the hurdle for LTC should be less.

I think LTC will grow up because people love to mine. Even people who just bought ASIC will keep their GPU to mine whatever they could. And LTC is the perfect way to do that. I'm talking about people with small rigs, who mines for fun (and for money too ;D), but more for fun.

Litecoin first will be a way to obtain Bitcoins with GPU mining in ASIC era, but due to that use will grow up to become the first altcoin and coexist with BTC.