I'm joining the fun!

[g2x3k]

well hey there brunic welcome to heh

[bitcool]

Litecoin is another interesting social experiment.

Currency is backed by confidence and trust, or force, not innovation, not directly.

[hathmill]

*EDIT*
The more I think about it, the more I wonder. How can you track somebody who trades between the blockchains? If you send 10 BTC for 1000 LTC to somebody else....how the hell are you supposed to match the transactions? I mean, if I want to launder 10 BTC, I send them to Litedude. Litedude sends me 1000 LTC for it. My 10 BTC transaction is written in the BTC blockchain, and the 1000 LTC transaction is written in the LTC blockchain. I send my 1000 LTC to Bitdude in exchange for a fresh 10 BTC in a new wallet address. Somebody who follow me on the blockchain will think that I have 10 BTC less, but I still have it in another address. And transactions on the BTC blockchain are not executed at the same time as transactions on the LTC blockchain, matching BTC and LTC transactions would be a hell of a job. Especially since you can delay them as you wish.

Brunic, I think you are touching upon something here. Though I have a legit job and income myself, I does not require much of an imagination to see how some people would find LTCBTC use of mixing services before cashing out on a deep enough exchange and get perhaps get a identity tied to the transaction.

I have aggregated LTCBTC data for some months now and are eyeballing the ratio. I am especially interested to see if a spread betting (actually pair-betting) opportunity will emerge. Will it be possible to hedge the volatility in BTC with a stake in LTC? And so forth and so on... (I have written a little bit about this in my blog here: http://blog.aramisw.com/index.asp?action=view&filter=Economics&post=altcoins&creationdate=120724).

[Brunic]

Brunic, I think you are touching upon something here. Though I have a legit job and income myself, I does not require much of an imagination to see how some people would find LTCBTC use of mixing services before cashing out on a deep enough exchange and get perhaps get a identity tied to the transaction.

I have aggregated LTCBTC data for some months now and are eyeballing the ratio. I am especially interested to see if a spread betting (actually pair-betting) opportunity will emerge. Will it be possible to hedge the volatility in BTC with a stake in LTC? And so forth and so on... (I have written a little bit about this in my blog here: http://blog.aramisw.com/index.asp?action=view&filter=Economics&post=altcoins&creationdate=120724).

Nice blog post!

We never had two legit blockchains before that are completely independent from each other. It's not about what Litecoin brings that Bitcoin don't have, it's about the dynamic between them that was impossible before when you had only 1 currency. Namecoin can't serve the purpose well in my opinion, because it have a different purpose than simply being a currency, and also because merged mining cause it's value to be somewhat tied to Bitcoin. It acts more like a bonus and less like a different currency. You cannot secure your funds in Namecoin because in the case of a 51% attack, Namecoin is affected as much as Bitcoin.

Litecoin, by using Scrypt, can't be 51% at the same time as Bitcoin. Miners are also forced to choose one of the currencies, they can't choose both of them. The fact of choosing influence people toward that currency. Now, people are more used to Bitcoin, since it was the only choice before. But with the ASIC coming, all those GPU miners will be forced to choose Litecoin for a while (until Litecoin ASIC are made, if they are made). All those gamers who mined Bitcoin with their graphic card will be forced to mine Litecoin now. I said before, those GPU are not going to disappear, they are going to be used for something else.

If more GPU miners drift toward Litecoin, the interesting dynamic between blockchain will start to appear. Like you said, you could bet or hedge on one blockchain against the other, something that was impossible before. You could easily enter the market by buying BTC, transfers your BTC into LTC and get out by cashing out the LTC. Or vice-versa. Even if some freak make a program to analyze the blockchain, analyzing TWO blockchains makes following the money impossible and irrelevant, especially since they have a different tempo of validation.

If you wanted to hedge against Bitcoin before, the only option you had was using fiat funds. Now, you can hedge indefinitely by switching back and forth BTC-LTC without anybody knowing. Litecoin is the only viable option at the moment to enable this, because it needs to have small differences(different algorithm, different tempo), but staying similar enough to Bitcoin (same basic functions, same functional logic). Bitcoin needed a small brother, and I think we have it 

[smoothie]

Brunic, I think you are touching upon something here. Though I have a legit job and income myself, I does not require much of an imagination to see how some people would find LTCBTC use of mixing services before cashing out on a deep enough exchange and get perhaps get a identity tied to the transaction.

I have aggregated LTCBTC data for some months now and are eyeballing the ratio. I am especially interested to see if a spread betting (actually pair-betting) opportunity will emerge. Will it be possible to hedge the volatility in BTC with a stake in LTC? And so forth and so on... (I have written a little bit about this in my blog here: http://blog.aramisw.com/index.asp?action=view&filter=Economics&post=altcoins&creationdate=120724).

Nice blog post!

We never had two legit blockchains before that are completely independent from each other. It's not about what Litecoin brings that Bitcoin don't have, it's about the dynamic between them that was impossible before when you had only 1 currency. Namecoin can't serve the purpose well in my opinion, because it have a different purpose than simply being a currency, and also because merged mining cause it's value to be somewhat tied to Bitcoin. It acts more like a bonus and less like a different currency. You cannot secure your funds in Namecoin because in the case of a 51% attack, Namecoin is affected as much as Bitcoin.

Litecoin, by using Scrypt, can't be 51% at the same time as Bitcoin. Miners are also forced to choose one of the currencies, they can't choose both of them. The fact of choosing influence people toward that currency. Now, people are more used to Bitcoin, since it was the only choice before. But with the ASIC coming, all those GPU miners will be forced to choose Litecoin for a while (until Litecoin ASIC are made, if they are made). All those gamers who mined Bitcoin with their graphic card will be forced to mine Litecoin now. I said before, those GPU are not going to disappear, they are going to be used for something else.

If more GPU miners drift toward Litecoin, the interesting dynamic between blockchain will start to appear. Like you said, you could bet or hedge on one blockchain against the other, something that was impossible before. You could easily enter the market by buying BTC, transfers your BTC into LTC and get out by cashing out the LTC. Or vice-versa. Even if some freak make a program to analyze the blockchain, analyzing TWO blockchains makes following the money impossible and irrelevant, especially since they have a different tempo of validation.

If you wanted to hedge against Bitcoin before, the only option you had was using fiat funds. Now, you can hedge indefinitely by switching back and forth BTC-LTC without anybody knowing. Litecoin is the only viable option at the moment to enable this, because it needs to have small differences(different algorithm, different tempo), but staying similar enough to Bitcoin (same basic functions, same functional logic). Bitcoin needed a small brother, and I think we have it 

You bring up some good points.

[420]

The gasoline brands analogy is interesting. Why indeed should I care which of the many cryptocurrencies a shop is willing to accept for a nice pair of alpaca socks as long as it happens to be one that I have enough of in my wallet?

If it happens to be an Ixcoin-only shop and I have no Ixcoins hopefully I can easily trade some other coin for Ixcoin, maybe even the payment provider will handle that for the merchant, taking whatever I like to pay with and giving the merchant his Ixcoins. Why should I care as long as something I have some of will buy those socks?

-MarkM-

ah...the future where we have a multi-BTC/NMC/SC/LR/LTC/PPCoin/Others Debit card...

[markm]

We are getting toward that. Take a look at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html

Those tables are used in commerce already.

For example a miner decides to shop a million units of deuterium to a General Mining Corp depot to make a payment against his startup loans.

GMC has a price in GMC scrip they pay for deuterium delivered to their depot.

Miner says uh guys actually I want to credit this against my loan, which as your records should show was refinanced in DeVCoin by General Financial Corp.

GMC sends their scrip to GFC, or, if they happen for some reason to have a bunch of DeVCoin on hand, they send "equivalent" in DeVCoin.

If it is GMC scrip that is sent, GFC looks up "equivalent" in DeVCoin to credit against the miner's loan.

They implement "equivalent" by looking at the latest row of those tables.

Its not all that complicated, really. Banks do it all the time, oh customer deposited USD cheque instead of CAD cheque? Look on table... Its pretty much normal practice, albeit usually with each bank likely using its own customised version of the table.

-MarkM-

[Bitcoin Oz]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

[Jutarul]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

[420]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

Has ford innovated in the last 30 years?

[Jutarul]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

Has ford innovated in the last 30 years?

Exactly. Ford doesn't really contribute to the diversity of the car industry either.

[420]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

Has ford innovated in the last 30 years?

Exactly. Ford doesn't really contribute to the diversity of the car industry either.

Okay I think now we're just in an argument over what the word 'diversity' really means here.

Different brands (diversity of sellers or product offerers) or diversity of the actual product

[Jutarul]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

Has ford innovated in the last 30 years?

Exactly. Ford doesn't really contribute to the diversity of the car industry either.

Okay I think now we're just in an argument over what the word 'diversity' really means here.

Different brands (diversity of sellers or product offerers) or diversity of the actual product

Correct. Diversity doesn't mean much if it's just relabeling. Relabeling creates an illusion of diversity (which is powerful, people like to make choices, even if they don't mean anything...)

There is one aspect which I consider valuable about a knock-off, and that's the development team. Having an independent group of people working on an implementation of cryptocurrency decentralizes the source and thus adds to the resilience of the overall project. Then, if one development team turns bad, people have somewhere to go.

However, since LTC is more or less a plain copy of the bitcoin concept, the community could be served better if that team would just create a different implementation for the bitcoin reference client.

[smoothie]

The reason to buy litecoin is diversity.

I would second that, but that remark actually brings me back to a point made earlier about innovation. If a cryptocurrency doesn't innovate it doesn't really add to diversity. It only adds to the illusion of diversity.

Has ford innovated in the last 30 years?

Exactly. Ford doesn't really contribute to the diversity of the car industry either.

Okay I think now we're just in an argument over what the word 'diversity' really means here.

Different brands (diversity of sellers or product offerers) or diversity of the actual product

Correct. Diversity doesn't mean much if it's just relabeling. Relabeling creates an illusion of diversity (which is powerful, people like to make choices, even if they don't mean anything...)

There is one aspect which I consider valuable about a knock-off, and that's the development team. Having an independent group of people working on an implementation of cryptocurrency decentralizes the source and thus adds to the resilience of the overall project. Then, if one development team turns bad, people have somewhere to go.

However, since LTC is more or less a plain copy of the bitcoin concept, the community could be served better if that team would just create a different implementation for the bitcoin reference client.

Lot's of talking going on here. With all your great wisdom how is it that you haven't started a better version of bitcoin?

It really doesn't matter what you think. The free market will choose what is a medium of exchange. Quite frankly it appears that there is quite a following for litecoin miners and buyers of the coin. Whether or not it is a copy doesn't remove the fact that it was a fairly started block chain. No premine and an announced launch date ahead of time. It is just as functional as bitcoin and can do very much the same thing.

Having an alternative to bitcoin is not a bad idea unless you are a large holder of bitcoin and don't want people (suckers/latecomers) to divert their attention and money to an alternative to the Holy of Holy, Bitcoin (i'm referring to some early adopters who have been very vocal about litecoin being a scam).

[Liquid]

+1 Well said i think LTC has a bright future we must support what is needed and not be mono-minded

[Jutarul]

Lot's of talking going on here. With all your great wisdom how is it that you haven't started a better version of bitcoin?

1. Laziness.
2. I think there are other bitcoin related projects which need more attention right now (e.g. decentralized asset systems, coin swapping, smart contracts and the like). One of the things I see emerging on the horizon is that the cryptocurrency acts more or less as a transport layer for higher order functionalities.
3. No need - the bitcoin development team is doing a good job right now.

It really doesn't matter what you think. The free market will choose what is a medium of exchange. ....

I am glad to hear that. Otherwise I would feel quite a pressure

It is just as functional as bitcoin and can do very much the same thing.

Exactly. Although the developers of LTC need to keep up with the development in bitcoin (unless they can do a simple merge). Also, an interesting aspect, LTC effectively reduces the price of BTC because it reroutes wealth into a second blockchain.

Having an alternative to bitcoin is not a bad idea unless you are a large holder of bitcoin and don't want people (suckers/latecomers) to divert their attention and money to an alternative to the Holy of Holy, Bitcoin (i'm referring to some early adopters who have been very vocal about litecoin being a scam).

Yeah.. I guess some don't like it if too much wealth leaks into other blockchains...

+1 Well said i think LTC has a bright future we must support what is needed and not be mono-minded

Maybe it helps to draw an analogy to linux. How mono is the linux kernel and why?

[markm]

Wealth isn't leaking from bitcoin, it is being thrown away dirt cheap on fiat exchanges by miners and hackers.

There isn't a lot of point in buying half a million bitcoins hoping they will rise in price if everyone else is meanwhile throwing away half a million bitcoins to hackers or scammers to be sold dirt cheap.

Until people actually value their bitcoins instead of dumping them having lots of alternatives is good, especially if there enough alternatives that no particular one of them seems real tempting to hackers nor even worth mining to miners whose only goal is to dump.

-MarkM-

[Jutarul]

Wealth isn't leaking from bitcoin, it is being thrown away dirt cheap on fiat exchanges by miners and hackers.

There isn't a lot of point in buying half a million bitcoins hoping they will rise in price if everyone else is meanwhile throwing away half a million bitcoins to hackers or scammers to be sold dirt cheap.

Until people actually value their bitcoins instead of dumping them having lots of alternatives is good, especially if there enough alternatives that no particular one of them seems real tempting to hackers nor even worth mining to miners whose only goal is to dump.

-MarkM-

I sense contempt. What are you trying to say? People should hang on to their money and avoid scams?
As far as the 7% figures per week/day/hour go I agree. Even 1% per year is bullshit if there is no business model.

I guess a lot of people got overwhelmed by the sudden exposure to unsecured investment opportunities. It's usually something only bank employees have.

[El Cabron]

i heart LTC

[bitcool]

It has been long predicted that Bitcoin will eventually become a "meta currency" in the cryptocurrency world, with other regional/smaller/specific currencies being more actively used for smaller transactions.

We may be seeing this happening.