Lightning network and Litecoins use cases

[jacobmayes94]

I am unsure if this goes in the alt section or Bitcoin section, as the lightning network is designed specifically for bitcoin?. I have been trying to get my head how the lightning network works, I understand how the bitcoin protocol works, I was struggling to work out how it would move coins one owns off/on blockchain to and from the lightning network, although I finally riddled out that it uses multisig addresses on blockchain to do that it seems? I like the idea of the lightning network.

Litecoin was developed for micropayments and is a reasonably secure chain as well with a decent hashrate and active development and its price has remained stable. With the introduction of the lightning network, where does a coin like litecoin stand? Most alts in my opinion are shitcoins, but I do feel litecoin has some value given the nature of it and it is also a reasonably secure blockchain. Diff is currently around 45 - 55K on average, but scrypt is much more intensive to compute than sha256d

Where does Litecoin stand now in relation to the bitcoin lighting network? As its use for micropayments would be overtaken somewhat, but it is a highly secure chain with active ASIC development still in progress. Bitcoin is the #1 of all coins, but I still think LTC holds a #2 spot...

So where would the usecases of litecoin stand at this point? Any advantages of having a second highly secure blockchain based coin or the chain itself? A blockchain with a decent capacity too I might add.

So I have added a poll to see what opinions are. As some will undoubtedly believe that the lightning network isn't the answer. Even if it isn't I don't think having billions of different coins and blockchains helps either

[ebliever]

I expect that in the long run you will see dozens of moderately to highly successful cryptocurrencies. It is a fallacy to think just one will be needed. That's like expecting everyone to be happy with just one model of vehicle, or one type of fiat (imagine if fiat only existed in the form of checks, or physical coins - no paper bills, online accounts, debit cards, credit cards, etc.).

There are many financial niches out there, each requiring a crypto that is optimized with unique characteristics to best fill it. The crypto that serves as a highly secure store of wealth will not be the same as the one that best handles convenient micropayments between the Internet of Things, which will differ from the crypto best suited for paying taxes, or daily purchases at Walmart, which in turn will differ from the most convenient crypto for human payments online. Business-to-business payments will use yet another crypto. And all will co-exist with highly fluid markets between them. And that's not even getting into subjects like smart contracts and other uses of blockchain tokens. Or the potential for cryptos affiliated with a region (Auroracoin) or interest group (Dogecoin) to persist indefinitely and enjoy modest success.

Maybe I'm wrong and something will prove a jack-of-all-trades. Perhaps eventually a main blockchain will harbor a single dominant currency, and sidechains optimized for each use will function in a way that basically ties us all into a single cryptocurrency with a multitude of facets. But personally I'd feel safer with multiple distinct cryptos. It provides an alternative if devs ever royally screw one up, and competition to optimize each crypto to its fullest potential as well.

[mookid]

My opinion is that Litecoin doesn't provide anything meaningful to the ecosystem, and the development is far from being active. The sole reason Litecoin holds value is because it enjoys the benefit of the 'network effect', it was the second cryptocurrency to exists and that's why is still relevant. With the surge of Ethereum and other Cryptos with smart-contract functionality, well, it just doesn't look good for LTC.

[ebliever]

My opinion is that Litecoin doesn't provide anything meaningful to the ecosystem, and the development is far from being active. The sole reason Litecoin holds value is because it enjoys the benefit of the 'network effect', it was the second cryptocurrency to exists and that's why is still relevant. With the surge of Ethereum and other Cryptos with smart-contract functionality, well, it just doesn't look good for LTC.

It was not the 2nd crypto.

http://themerkle.com/5-oldest-crypto-coins-spiritual-successors-bitcoin/

EDIT: Here's a better list: https://litecoin.info/History_of_cryptocurrency