SHA 256 vs Scrypt

[frankenmint]

There is a subjective recurring word here:  profitability.  Because 5 dollars per month to me isnt profitability. 

Folks will often refute their own time and efforts to setup the hardware which should be accounted for when determining "profitability"  Do you work for free?  You shouldn't, so that works to the same effect that profitability shouldn't be the driving motivator so much as reasons to support "X" network, whether that be Dodge coin or Vertcoin or 21Coin.  Bigger underlying issue with all of this is that there isn't a specific utility to drive the demand of cryptocurrency because whatever you can acquire with cryptocurrency can also still be acquired with cash.

Hopefully things like smartproperty and new age securities that require nothing more than a permanent deposit to grant coverage (think things like insurance policies)  will be the driving force towards mainstream adoption for cyrptocurrency. 

I repeat - the underlying motion is to "stick with X coin" for the sake of profitability and not necessarily utility - THIS IS THE WRONG APPROACH FOR LONGEVITY! 

I picked sha256 as I've acquired hardware but I also expect to have scrypt hardware online next week too.  Sure, if the little guy wants to break in and do analysis on profitability, then be my guest, but that should not be what we're all trying to solve here.

My two cents.

[Warren]

Just gathering data, building a rig and not deciding whether to get some Bitcoin ASICS (which im assuming you can reconfigure to other sha coins) or do a scrypt rig. Thanks!

I mine both Scrypt (with GPU) and SHA-256 (with ASIC).

I would recommend you wait a couple of months and see if Alpha Technologies will actually deliver their new ASICs Scrypt mining rig, and if the specs hold up as promised. If they do it should be pretty profitable for a while at least, assuming you can get a hold of one.

If you are risk averse Scrypt is probably the way to go at the moment since you can always re-sell the gear and recover a substantial portion of your investment. ASIC's are useless for pretty much everything except mining.

[evansearle42]

Actually i though scrypt asics could mine on alt coins, as long as they are scrypt and are not scrypt jane or have an N factor. Was i wrong? Thats what interested me in scrypt ASIcS, because if LTC becomes unprofitable (reaching that point) then you could point those same asics at some altcoins, or use a profit switcher pool; so they have life beyond that where SHA is stuck to bitcoin, and maybe like namecoin (if im correct)

I believe it can only mine scrypt and not other special scrypt..

[muchogas]

+1 for Scrypt and I'm going to tell you what you know but what nobody said over here.

1. If bitcoin crashes, you can sell your computer for atleast 50% (bc the GPU's will decrease in value), you wouldn't be able to sell ASIC's
2. Right now it's more profitable, and the good this is that different altcoins come out, so the total Hashrate gets distributed to a lot of different coins. For example, if Dogecoin wouldn't exist, then LTC's difficulty would probably be at 6000 now.
3. Even though ASIC's for Scrypt are only months away, different variation of scrypts will come out (like N scrypt for VERT) that won't allow ASIC's to mine them. And I'm sure that then a whole bunch of new Nscrypts are going to come out.

4. If one day you're bored, disconnect one of your GPU's and use it to play videogames. Minecraft for example...