What exactly is wrong with LTC?

[bitcool]

I don't see any value added by trying to make a coin "GPU-mining resistant," so given that that seemed to be one of the LTC design goals I wasn't as interested as I might have been.

It's not "GPU-mining resistant", more like "ASIC-resistant". You won't appreciate this feature unless you are a bitcoin miner and soon will be driven out of business by big shot ASIC investors.

Not to mention the confirmation speed, blockchain download speed is very pleasant too.

[1713998192]

1713998192

[1713998192]

1713998192

[1713998192]

1713998192

[franky1]

Anyone in the LTC market know how it moves? It it determined by btc value or does it stand alone?

for a long while there was /is a visible pattern between difficulty changes of LTC and the LTC/USD prices to say that "GENERALLY" the price stands on its own two feet.

but due to the main exchange being BTC-E.com* there is a impact in the price caused by people arbitraging the BTC - USD - LTC- BTC circle as well as the other direction BTC - LTC- USD - BTC, when arbitrage events happen for a quick margin of profit.

and the occasional ramps and dumps that happen before settling back to their rational prices again.

so i would not say bitcoin movements are not ruled out of the equation, just not the permanent indicator/value comparison.

but that's where i find that the fun part though. if LTC was on a stand alone exchange with no other currency beside it, the volatility would be less.

in the future LTC will hold more on its own, but when there is money to be made, why stick with a bi-directional trading platform, when there is many directions traders can move between different currencies on BTC-E.

*and why BTC-E has gained its popularity over the other LTC exchanges is because of the multiple currencies in one exchange.

[debianlinux]

I have often traded BTC for LTC. I have never done it the other way around.

The guy who sold you the LTC has.

What was your point? Mine was to state emphatically that everyone in LTC is NOT just in it to convert to BTC. Your response seems to reinforce the adage that everybody else must be and that I'm just an anomaly. Since you seem to be a proponent of LTC I'd like some clarification on what you were trying to say unless you were just spewing the same tripe all the LTC haters want heard.

[sublime5447]

NO NO you have me all wrong. I think lite coin is great. I especially like the potential to stabilize BTC. I do think that it makes acquiring BTC easier. It looks to me like people hold their BTC with a death grip but LTC are more easily attained.

[markm]

If people held onto their bitcoins with a deathgrip they would not be so absurdly cheap, we would have recovered from the big oh gosh it got hacked crash of a few years ago almost immediately and be up to hundreds of dollars a coin by now. As it is people throw them away for pittances so that it has taken us this long to get back on track.

-MarkM-

[sublime5447]

We will see

[cptmooseinc]

I think Litecoin's main strength at the present time is its general stability within a certain range. The BTC/LTC trade value has been very steady. With BTC's surge from $12-and-change back in November, to the $24 it is now, I feel like Litecoin would be a great place to convert BTC funds to after a sell and store them in a wallet (and not leave funds waiting/vulnerable on an exchange) until the coin has a pullback.

And with Litecoin appreciating slowly over the past couple of months, you'd get a reward in the form of a small rate of interest on your funds until a more opportune time presents itself to jump back in the game. Litecoin is definitely a trader's coin right now, but I don't think its value as such is being fully realized by the trading community as of yet.

[Walter Rothbard]

I don't see any value added by trying to make a coin "GPU-mining resistant," so given that that seemed to be one of the LTC design goals I wasn't as interested as I might have been.

It's not "GPU-mining resistant", more like "ASIC-resistant". You won't appreciate this feature unless you are a bitcoin miner and soon will be driven out of business by big shot ASIC investors.

Exactly.  I'm not in that situation, so I don't appreciate that feature.  And as a Bitcoin user, I pretty much dis-appreciate that feature.

Not to mention the confirmation speed, blockchain download speed is very pleasant too.

Those are worth experimenting with.

[mb300sd]

The only "problem" I see is that it hasn't been updated in months. I hadn't started litecoin in a couple months and there were barely any changes when I updated my source tree...

Is https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin still current? Are there any plans to rebase to bitcoin 0.8?

[matauc12]

I've got nothing against LTC, and I like alternative cryptocurrencies and wish them well.  I don't see any value added by trying to make a coin "GPU-mining resistant," so given that that seemed to be one of the LTC design goals I wasn't as interested as I might have been.

except it isn't GPU resistant, but at least CPU mining isn't 100% obsolete. Makes use of the whole computer which is surely something someone can appreciate.

[almwaysa]

Here are the 2 reasons why I like LTC:
1- CPU mining is not yet obsolete, so I can use GPUs for BTC and CPU for LTC on the same machine.
2- ASIC resistance. After ASICs hit the BTC network gpus will be much less useful for btc mining, might as well go ltc with them.

[crazy_rabbit]

Here are the 2 reasons why I like LTC:
1- CPU mining is not yet obsolete, so I can use GPUs for BTC and CPU for LTC on the same machine.
2- ASIC resistance. After ASICs hit the BTC network gpus will be much less useful for btc mining, might as well go ltc with them.

It's not ASIC resistant at all. You could make an ASIC for LTC if you seriously wanted to and though it was worthwhile. What you mean to say, more precisely, is that Bitcoin specific ASIC's (SHA-256) will not work for LTC. That said however, almost all of the rest of the bitcoin hashpower COULD work on LTC. So if you're happy about CPU mining, if all that mining power were to switch to LTC, all CPU miners would be similarly royally screwed. Not an ASIC but the effect would be the same. :-)

[debianlinux]

What is really wrong with LTC is that there is a large contingent of relative long-timers who main stayed through Bitcoin's relative early days and they don't care to see any competitors enter the arena. That someone new to the cryptocurrency scene can get in on the ground floor of a coin with huge upside potential is repugnant to them despite having enjoyed the same opportunity themselves. That said, these people endured the uncertainty and derision that came with buying in to the very first idea so it may be appropriate for the LTC camp to endure similar vitriol.

[hanzac]

The problem is that the crypto currencies are not difficult to create (by forking the code, do some modification, mining with the CPU/GPU). It's really no big deal. The competition is tough. Even BTC also will possibly face the competition in the future. The only crypto coins favored by the god can have a long life.

[crazy_rabbit]

The problem is that the crypto currencies are not difficult to create (by forking the code, do some modification, mining with the CPU/GPU). It's really no big deal. The competition is tough. Even BTC also will possibly face the competition in the future. The only crypto coins favored by the god can have a long life.

Good point.

[jl2012]

Does it have a design flaw?

It isn't as much flaw as deception. Litecoin used the same scrypt parameters as Tenebrix. Artforz had gamed almost everyone involved in the scrypt()-based coins. He had choosen the set of parameters that made GPU mining possible, but made claims that the design is GPU-resistant. Then he proceeded to mine all the scrypt()-based coins (Tenebrix/Fairbrix/etc) on his GPU farm that was significantly more efficient than the CPU miners.

Exactly. Scrypt-based mining is not bad but LTC is just a scam

[markm]

Why hasn't anyone used scrypt with more the kind of parameters it was intended for instead of perverting / crippling it to make it fit in GPUs? Everyone owns GPUs so doesn't really want to make CPUs competitive?

-MarkM-

[bitcool]

Does it have a design flaw?

It isn't as much flaw as deception. Litecoin used the same scrypt parameters as Tenebrix. Artforz had gamed almost everyone involved in the scrypt()-based coins. He had choosen the set of parameters that made GPU mining possible, but made claims that the design is GPU-resistant. Then he proceeded to mine all the scrypt()-based coins (Tenebrix/Fairbrix/etc) on his GPU farm that was significantly more efficient than the CPU miners.

Without a proof, I view those conspiracy accusation as pure FUD.

OTOH, if you have the technical capability of implementing an alt chain with a better algorithm, making everyone believe it's only mine-able by human brain-cells, while you secretly develop a GPU miner mining it more efficiently, you deserve every penny you "premined".

It's actually a lot fairer than many "software patent" holders protected by IP laws.

 

[2112]

Without a proof, I view those conspiracy accusation as pure FUD.

I don't know, maybe somebody still has the IRC logs from the channels frequented by Lolcust & Artforz. I didn't keep them, although I idled on all of them for a while: GeistGeld; Tenebrix/Fairbrix, Realcoin, etc. The discussion there was really lively. Many people were more burned by the biting sense of homour of both Artforz & Lolcust; more so than by the premine that Lolcust designed into Tenebrix. In this way the origins of Litecoin are realy murky: one could say it is a Tenebrix-clone but without the trolling and sarcastic humour that was associated with them. It seems that nobody had though to even question or discuss the choice that Artforz had dictated. For a while this forum was full of posts by BitcoinExpress (and others like bulanula) regarding mining and attacking various coins. I think most of them are deleted now. If somebody is hell-bent on obtaining the proof maybe theymos or other administrators would give them copy of the deleted posts from this subforum.

Personally, I don't need the proof: I read the Colin Percival papers and presentations about scrypt & tarsnap. He shows how to choose the optimim parameters for each implementation technology. Artforz had choosen much lower values: so low that they would fit in the on-chip BRAM of Spartan-6 FPGAs.

[sublime5447]

2112 I have no idea what you are talking about , but as long as it means that LTC is sound that is all I need to know. I dont car if someone pre-mined.