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I do software development from home, wife is stay-at-home, we homeschool, and we have 4 kids under 7 (soon to be 5 kids in a couple days...)
Our oldest is still too young to truly understand the intricacies of Bitcoin, but he knows what mining is. He even built a "mining rig" out of Legos a year and a half ago.
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The fact is that the geek/libertarian/etc world isn't big enough for 2 currencies at this point. All Litecoin (and its lesser brothers) does is increase the total amount of "alt currency" in circulation.
Well, if you believe that, then you must believe that Bitcoin is doomed. Gold is the #1 geek/libertarian/etc currency, followed by silver. Bitcoin is, at best, a distant third. There is $8 trillion worth of gold in the world vs. bitcoin's miniscule $130 million. If Bitcoin can compete, then why can't Litecoin? 1. I don't think Bitcoin is doomed. 2. Gold is NOT the #1 geek/libertarian currency. It's the #1 survivalist currency. Some libertarians might like it as well, but it's certainly not popular among geeks! 3. While I agree that EVENTUALLY there will be room for more than 1 "bitcoin-like" currency, the 2nd one will have to be really unique and have something special to offer -- like being backed by a city, state, country, or 1st-tier online retailer (Amazon, Wal-mart, etc.) Just another me-too "hey, Bitcoin is open source so here, I made my own blockchain" currency is never going to be able to gain mindshare. Not yet. There aren't enough of us geeks messing around with crypto-currencies. I think some Litecoin fans on this thread are not the most objective -- they're probably sitting on a pile of LTC and stand to gain MUCH by being the early adopters in the next Bitcoin. I, on the other hand, am a disinterested 3rd party, who stands to gain nothing if I'm wrong or right. |
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Litecoin is the latest worthless alt-coin Pump & Dump being chased by the miners for a few extra bucks. It will fail just like the other two dozen "alt-coin" blockchains before it.
Litecoin has been around for over a year. Has outlasted multiple "alt-coin" blockchains that started in vain before it. Has outlasted multiple "alt-coin" blockchains since it. Has surpassed alts like NMC and SLC :facepalm: in market value (not that that means much). Look, I'm an architect and the most important thing in designing buildings that last is a strong foundation. The Litecoin community has been methodically strengthening that base over the past year. Surviving potential 51% attacks, evolving from a purely CPU coin to mainly a GPU coin (still many of us boting w/CPUs). It's got it's small band of coders, designers & creatives collaborating over on LitecoinTalk and on IRC. And that group is growing as more folks learn about it. The biggest draw I've seen to Litecoin (besides the hoarders & strike it rich types that bog the community down) is the speed of Litecoin. Faster transactions is, to me, the only difference there needs to be between Bitcoin and Litecoin. The blockchain is 4x faster by design and pending transactions don't get held up in a bumper to bumper traffic jam. The speeds might slow, but at least the traffic is still moving. These speeds will improve online purchasing if a site chooses Litecoin as a currency. And merchant tools are being developed by the band of brothers on the forums and chats as we speak. http://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,936.0.htmlAnyone can rattle off a dozen Bitcoin sites / 1 Litecoin sites. Many of us use Bitcoin everyday online. Bitcoin has built it's foundation and now is designing the beautiful architecture above the ground that amazes more people around the world every day. Litecoin is building it's foundation and will soon be joining Bitcoin above ground in all it's glory. "Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?" Ok, I'll grant you that Litecoin is the shiniest tricycle around -- in a world of cars. How many devs? How many projects? I'm sure BTC has 10X as many, and it is still far from mainstream. I'm a fan and all, but I'm objective enough to admit it has a LONG way to go. Most people still haven't heard of Bitcoin, unless in some vague manner, "Bitcoin? Isn't that how you buy silk or drugs or somethin' like that??" The fact is that the geek/libertarian/etc world isn't big enough for 2 currencies at this point. All Litecoin (and its lesser brothers) does is increase the total amount of "alt currency" in circulation. Like a game where all the neighborhood kids start trading/selling seashells -- then a few kids decide to start collecting/trading/selling pine cones. Now the "wealth" of that community is divided up into seashells AND pinecones -- I guess that would take away some of the value from seashells. My closing point: Go to Google, and type in "litecoin" 74,200 results Type in "bitcoin" About 11,000,000 results (0.25 seconds) So it's not a factor of 10 -- Bitcoin trounces it much more than that. Long story short, LTC is only worth messing with if you're a miner, or maybe a developer that wants to be a HUGE fish in a microscopic pond. But who would ever put their money in such a currency, unless you had a ready-to-gamble-it-in-Vegas-anyhow level of risk aversion? |
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Uh LTC difficulty recent went up from 26 to 42, not down...unfortunately. It was fun while it lasted after dropping from 48 to 26 though.  LTC is on its way back down.... I posted the then current estimates from allchains.info LTC is on a roller coaster ride.. when diff drops people jump on it like a free meal.. when diff shoots back up they run away like the plague.. so far it seems that the down cycle lasts 2 days and the up cycle (higher diff) lasts 4 1/2 days And people think a stable currency/economy can be built on a system like Litecoin? Give me a break. Bitcoin has a long, stable history compared to Litecoin -- and I still meet plenty of people that haven't heard of Bitcoin. |
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Limited use? Bitcoin had limited use upon its creation as well. All it takes is time, there's already projects being developed for LTC and it will continue to grow.
"Hope springs eternal." Bitcoin isn't even mainstream yet. Litecoin doesn't stand a chance. Litecoin is the latest worthless alt-coin Pump & Dump being chased by the miners for a few extra bucks. It will fail just like the other two dozen "alt-coin" blockchains before it. You show me one of these "projects" in the works for Litecoin, and I'll show you a dozen for Bitcoin. If you show me 2 projects for Litecoin, I'll show you 2 dozen. And so forth. |
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No, I'm not shutting mine off. I'm heating my apartment with my rigs right now. As of right now, they are providing free heating along with some coins. Once ASIC hits, I'm switching over to LTC. I have some BFL products on the way whenever they ship, so I'll be mining BTC and LTC in the near future, while getting some free heating. Woohoo!
Last I heard (2 days ago), LTC was less profitable than BTC. Remember, everyone and their grandma jumped over to LTC when the Halving occurred. So it makes sense. |
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I dont get the point of mining alt chains and expecting profit. Has any of them ever been profitable outside the initial pump & dump phase ?
No. |
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LTC just died in the arse as a bunch of GPU miners jumped on board for a bit and pushed difficulty beyond profitability. I did warn them that the BTC halving would hurt LTC but they saw more people mining as a good thing. The LTC fanboys thought that more people mining would somehow magically drive LTC prices up when there is no such mechanism.
This was very predictable (from September): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108528.msg1200541#msg1200541you and 10,000 other motherfuckers, what do you think is going to happen to litecoin difficulty?  I am more interested in what will happen to LTC price...any predictions ? (just bought an additionally 7970) What do you expect? 10K odd GPU mofos selling every LTC they mine for BTC. That's a downward pressure. If a number of them decide to hoard, that's an upward pressure. But as a general rule, short-term minded miners who would be expected to flock to LTC are likely to bring the price down. LTC are simply not traded almost anywhere and they don't offer any big advantages over BTC. Basically the core of LTC who just wanted a GPU free environment will see that goal definitively destroyed. GPU have very little future as mining equipment. The whole project would be pointless now with a GPU-dominated ecosystem and no single meaningful advantage over the coin that has all the traction - except for those with large quantities of LTC. Anyone could have predicted the demise of LTC -- it's just the latest "me too" blockchain that has NO advantages over Bitcoin. At least not when all advantages/disadvantages are totaled up and weighed. Bitcoin has an order of magnitude more traction, acceptance, infrastructure than all those alt-blockchains put together. I'm sure LTC won't be the last, either. |
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It THAT what happened.
I was wondering what in the world was going on.
I mean, 4.58 blocks per hour?
Estimated difficulty 3.51M? A day ago it was 3.60M and climbing.
Meanwhile the BTC price has shot up almost $1 over pre-Halving levels.
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the reason people aren't stopping is they suck at math. We had our net income cut in half not profits! So people may have been making 20 dollars a day and now think, I'm only making 10 dollars a day when it reality its more like $5. They also are not figuring in their hardware is losing value about as fast as they are making money. They are also a few people like me who are playing chicken. But at this point I think I'm close to done. Maybe I can beat the fire sales to ebay.
i don't think the hashrate will ever drop.
people still want a piece of the pie -
however small that is.
they are all chasing a possibility, a probability -
a chance
for the same reason people have mined gold at a loss -
for centuries.
Several miners have used that phrase "playing chicken". Yes, playing chicken -- with a train. You have to get off the road when you get close to that train (ASICs) anyhow, so why not get off a month or so early, and reclaim the space (quiet, money, etc.) used by the mining operation? |
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Any of those alt coins have less inherent value than Bitcoin (which, admittedly, only has whatever value the market decides)
They are usually valued as x% of a Bitcoin.
It's basically a way to have more "wealth" in the alt-currency world, given that there are a fixed number of Bitcoins (by far the most popular currency in the "peer to peer cryptocurrency world")
Bitcoin is held by what, hundreds of thousands?
These alt coins are held by hundreds.
The US Dollar is like the Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701-D, if you're curious)
Bitcoin is a Volkswagen Bug.
Alt-coins are old, rusty tricycles priced "$1.00" at a garage sale, which are still there on day 3 of the sale.
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So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....
Being as that's impossible, I call ignorance and/or B.S. Just good luck... Been hitting twice the blocks I normally do. You mean your pool is super lucky. What pool is it? I seriously doubt you're "hitting many blocks" solo mining. Anyhow, it's besides the point. Your "luck", even if it exists, will run out sooner rather than later and then you'll be faced with the same economics the rest of us have dealt with. |
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I agree with your mathematics and reasoning, but still...
With variance like that, who needs people adding more capacity to the network?
Sorry, I don't follow. Did you mean "who knows if more people are adding capacity to the network"? I was paraphrasing the saying, "With friends like this, who needs enemies?" In other words, a 5% diff increase is pretty significant, especially when margins are razor thin. It doesn't really matter WHY it happened, even if it's raw chance. If variance can jack up difficulty by 5%, it doesn't matter that no one is adding capacity. I find it odd that variance isn't just-so-happening to bring the total hashrate DOWN, even though several people have stated their rigs are now silent.
I personally took 5 GH/s off the network several days ago, and others have done the same. |
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So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....
Being as that's impossible, I call ignorance and/or B.S. |
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How much is a 7970, and when could you possibly have bought them? They haven't been out that long.
Do you hope to recoup this very recent investment? A $500 card depreciates much more in 6 months than a $200 or $150 card.
I personally haven't added to my GPU collection since August 2011.
Keeping a mining operation going is one thing. Going in for new cards? For some time now, that's been a bad idea -- especially with the Great Halving and FPGA/ASICs on the horizon.
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organofcorti --
Impressive charts and all, but one can't deny that difficulty is set to rise 4.86% as of the current estimate right now. And we're talking halfway to a reset, which is a pretty accurate reading.
You can't write off a 5% rise in difficulty averaged over 7 days to "variance".
I can. The 95% confidence interval for 1008 blocks is 0.94 to 1.063. I think you'll find a 5% increase is contained within those limits. Even the difficulty change can be affect by variance - the 95 % confidence interval for the hashrate mean over 2016 blocks is 95.7 to 1.044. A difficulty change mostly reflects a change in network hashrate, but if the change is in the 95% confidence interval, then we can't be certain that any of that change is due to a change in network hashrate. I agree with your mathematics and reasoning, but still... With variance like that, who needs people adding more capacity to the network? |
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I just shut down all my rigs and cleaned up each piece of each machine. Took about 3 days! I have just 2 cards running now for a total of 770 MH/s. I don't want to run these clean cards, because getting them all dusty again for $1 or $2 a day just isn't worth my time. Maybe if I were 16 again, sure. Maybe if it weren't 80 degrees in the part of Texas I live, sure. But $1 or $2 a day isn't worth it. And when you factor in the difficulty going up even before ASICs hit the market, I feel like I'm just bowing to the inevitable. I'm just getting out about 3-6 weeks before I'm forced to. I'm not worried about Bitcoin and the network. It will do just fine without me. I might rebuild an efficient rig or two for Winter heat -- but Winter hasn't started yet. Winter in this part of Texas lasts about 4 weeks, and we might not get one this year  |
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organofcorti --
Impressive charts and all, but one can't deny that difficulty is set to rise 4.86% as of the current estimate right now. And we're talking halfway to a reset, which is a pretty accurate reading.
You can't write off a 5% rise in difficulty averaged over 7 days to "variance".
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Probably not the best example... Did you notice the Net Profit line? Or the 15 year payoff?  It's not ideal compared to what we are used to, but a 15 year payoff is 6.7% annually. This is considered to be a good investment in the non-bitcoin world. If you found such a good investment, you could ride it infinitely with a 4% Safe withdrawl rate. Bitcoin people kind of have their heads up their asses when it comes to what a normal return is. Wow, this is impressive. I can send that money away to a bank for 5.5% annual interest with only 1 year lockdown of the cash. If a bank promised me 6.7% if i invested my money with them for 15 years i would laugh them in the face. There are a few places, in the real world, where you get 7+% for less than 15 years of lockdown  Taking a chance and buying an asic that might be worth 0 and generate 0 USD, 7 or 9 or 14 years into the future is just not an option. /GoK What bank offers 5.5% interest rate for 1 year lockdown? I'm honestly curious, as I have money that needs investing. Actually, it's not a 1-year lockdown. It's a 15-year lockdown. 5.5% APR would be impressive for a 1-year CD in 2012. However... CDs are backed by the FDIC. CDs are considered "cash" in the realm of investments, and the lowest risk one can have in a portfolio (except maybe physical gold bullion!) Bitcoin mining would be more like Penny Stocks -- extremely volatile, and in the highest risk category in one's portfolio. So to get a reward comparable to CASH, while taking a risk comparable to HIGH RISK STOCKS -- it just doesn't add up for me and many others. |
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Blocks 210543
Total BTC 10.514M
Difficulty 3438909
Estimated 3584782 in 1137 blks
Network total 26.699 Thash/s
Blocks/hour 6.51 / 553 s
Still looking at an increase in difficulty, almost halfway through the 2012 block period.
The BTC price is hovering between $12.48 and $12.59. Not much of an increase in price -- it was $12.30 before the Halving.
Seems that for each person turning off his rigs (few in number), there is twice as much hashing power being switched on somewhere else...
Very strange. ASICs?
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