Botswana are relatively advanced and stable in comparison to most of the continent, but good on her nonetheless.

The ASICs would then get pointed at altcoins that use SHA-256 protocols, such as Peercoins and Terracoins, provided they themselves don't switch as well.

Pointless clone coins seem to be dying, the ones with original features (Litecoin, Peercoin, Primecoin, etc.) seem to be staying strong.

Much appreciated, thank you and Theymos!

1. Design it with a proportionate transaction fee of around 0.1% or something similar instead of the fixed rates. It would make using mBTC transactions more possible down the track if the price of BTC were to skyrocket.

2. Ability to autoprune blockchain transactions for wallets beyond 6 months or a year, to keep disk drive space limitations to a minimum, except for those running a dedicated node.

3. As compensation for running a dedicated node and requiring larger storage space compared to a wallet with autopruning enabled, the first 120 nodes to confirm the transactions receive an even split of the transaction fees for the block confirmed.

4. Make it more difficult to clone.

5. A different algorithm that isn't used by a security agency, preferably built up from scratch for Bitcoin itself.

Points 1 to 3 are kind of linked, particularly regarding nodes.

Fair enough. Oh well, I've got 2 months until I'm back studying again, and I did a little bit of C for a programming unit, so I might have a look at the source code for CGminer and see if I can make sense of it.

Probably Earthcoin, as it's been fairly well thought out in terms of its design, and while I had my doubts initially, Protoshares could be another contender.

Better, more foolproof means for POS transactions will help (i.e. the use of a real-time exchange to lock in a price rate, something akin to Paypass and so on).

Ok, the clutter in here is beginning to annoy me, particularly with having to sift through the giveaway and announcement threads to try and keep up to date with some of the software mining programs, so I thought I would create this thread to help with finding them quickly. Given the kittens chance in hell of altcoin subforums being created, this is probably the best alternative at this point. I imagine I'm not alone in my opinion on this, especially given the current stickied threads regarding the list of coins and associated services.

Software

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167229.0 - CUDAminer (Scrypt miner for Nvidia cards)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=257623.0 - Unofficial jhPrimeminer thread (CPU miners for Primecoins)

Hardware

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=368468.0 - Fibonacci SCRYPT ASIC Litecoin LTC Miners

Can a moderator please sticky this thread? Also, feel free to add direct links to other threads in this forum regarding altcoin software and hardware such as Litecoin FPGAs (as an example). SHA-256 coins are already covered in the Bitcoin Hardware and Software Mining areas, so please consider links to threads about Scrypt, Scrypt-Jane, SHA512 and so on instead.

I only haunt the altcoin section nowadays due to a couple of developers working on altcoin miners that only seems to be on here. Other than that, I browse Litecointalk.org and Peercointalk.org to keep abreast of developments on there.

I'm also tempted to make a thread with links to altcoin mining software threads and try and get it sticked so I don't have to sift through tons of announcement and giveaway threads to try and find them, which is getting tedious as it is. There's one with a list of most of the alts, it'd be a perfect complimentary thread.

Perhaps we should see how much BTC it would take to make it happen. I think a small amount would be fair compensation for the amount of demand on the servers the altcoin section is generating.

Given that there is a Nvidia-optimised scrypt miner in the form of CUDAminer, might be worth focusing on AMD cards to try and find ways of optimising their output instead of trying to develop a catch-all program for both. Worst case, you can incorporate elements of both down the track into a combined GPU Scrypt miner program.

On a side note, has anyone tried developing an Intel HD Graphics miner? Might not be able to get much of it, but would help to squeeze a bit more hashing power out of some desktop PCs.

It'd be a relatively big task, but IMO, a fork of CGMiner with the CUDAminer code built into it or CUDAminer with a similar interface would be perfect, particularly for switching pools at will and being able to adjust some parameters on the fly to try and tweak the cards for best performance. The original CPUMiner was a good base to start from for this project, but maybe it's time to consider an improved interface.

Considering the debt ceiling in the US is dangerously close to being breached, I don't think the Chinese will want to peg their currency to the US dollar for much longer and might start to unpeg it from the dollar and other currencies in the near future, particularly now that their economy is in a fairly strong position to do so. Not only that, but they do have a significant presence in Africa by providing funds for infrastructure such as roads and working to help develop some industries, so it really wouldn't be too much of a stretch for any African countries with significant oil fields that the Chinese are involved with to directly trade oil for the yuan without needing to get the US dollar involved in any way, shape or form, particularly if they are not part of OPEC or decide to break away from them if the value of the US dollar tanks due to the debt ceiling being breached. After all, motor vehicle use in China is on the rise due to their burgeoning middle-class and a decent deal for relatively cheap oil in exchange for industrial and infrastructure funding and development would be a good case of scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours.

They could also easily start pricing oil in the Chinese Yuan as an alternative.

Given the number of clone coins that seem to be churned out nearly daily, should some established altcoins consider merge-mining with each other to strengthen their overall networks and consolidate more mining power? I feel that if something like this isn't considered and doesn't happen, BTC will keep dominating as the top cryptocurrency without any real considerable threat to it. Plus, it might open up some more trading possibilities. For example, using the parent coin, such as Litecoin, as the primary long-term wealth storage and using a merged-mined coin of a similar type, such as Feathercoin that has 4 times the overall number of coins, or even Dogecoin, as a means of trading for lower value goods. Theoretically, the merged-mined coins should ideally have a proportion value to the amount of coins against each type (i.e. Feathercoin as a quarter of the value of a Litecoin). That way, the parent coin could become the equivalent gold of its type, another one the silver and so forth.

Some would've baulked at this being proposed about a year ago, but maybe now is the time to start considering it.

Yep, with bonus meme!

If you've got an Nvidia card, will be worth your while hitting up the Cudaminer program in the altcoins section, written by cbuchner1. It's forked from CPUMiner, but he's put some solid work into it for almost a year now and it's making the cards punch above their weight a fair bit with regards to Scrypt mining, but not quite as much as the AMD cards. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for someone to develop an AMD-dedicated version to better take advantage of them compared to a catch-all program.

That said, would love to be able to merge the relevant code from Cudaminer into a fork of CGMiner to be able to monitor the cards and switch pools more easily, but I have a very, very basic understanding of C. Could do it, but it would take a fair bit of time (i.e. months) for me to learn and try to do it.

Feathercoin V2.0, IMO.

More efforts to decouple it from the effects of the rise and fall of the price of BTC would go a long way to helping it, IMO.