Litecoin is described pretty harshly on the bitcoin wiki

[taltamir]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

This seems to have some very harsh things to say about litecoin.
Are not most of those criticisms applicable also to bitcoin (to varying degrees)?

Should I bother getting into litecoin in addition to bitcoin?

Is there any chance of an eventually unified wallet containing both coin types?

[Mike Christ]

I was promised weight loss I felt no lighter after using LTC.

[debianlinux]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

This seems to have some very harsh things to say about litecoin.

Stick around, there are lots of personalities here and some of them are rather small minded and immature.

Are not most of those criticisms applicable also to bitcoin (to varying degrees)?

Yes. This wiki is by no means objective, it is intentionally biased. Much of the declarative portions are entirely opinion. A proper wiki should highlight both sides of a controversy and should avoid leading the reader to a predetermined conclusion. This article achieves neither.

Should I bother getting into litecoin in addition to bitcoin?

No one can make this decision but you. Educate yourself and understand the reasons you have for entering into any cryptocurrrency.

Is there any chance of an eventually unified wallet containing both coin types?

The desire for such a thing has been voiced. It is certainly an achievable coding venture but one might ask what is there to truly be gained and also what is lost by combining wallets. There is nothing preventing someone from writing their own and releasing it for public use.

[taltamir]

@debianlinux: thanks

@snapsunny:

[toz]

The criticism is fair if you believe we can be relatively certain that Litecoin will never get broad adoption. It's unfair if you think that Litecoin has a reasonable chance for broad adoption. Since there doesn't appear to be any actual advantageous technical differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin, it's hard to see any path to broad adoption. You'd have to imagine some large organization inexplicably chooses to back Litecoin.

[Anon136]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

This seems to have some very harsh things to say about litecoin.
Are not most of those criticisms applicable also to bitcoin (to varying degrees)?

Should I bother getting into litecoin in addition to bitcoin?

Is there any chance of an eventually unified wallet containing both coin types?

litecoin offers no additional functionality that bitcoin does not offer. If you really want to invest in an alt-coin check out namecoin and ripple. These 2 do add new additional functionality.

[debianlinux]

There seems something logically fallacious in the notion that Bitcoin will succeed and Litecoin will fail despite the fact that Litecoin does what Bitcoin does. The assumption is that there can be only one given a lack of differences. What precedent is there for placing such concrete faith in this assumption?

Finally, there are technical differences and saying that there isn't over and over doesn't make it less true. Faster confirmation time is rather nice, imo and having an alternative for GPU/CPU miners in the face of ASIC (as a result of a technical difference) may create a real thriving market in the near future. It is not like some other alt-coins I will not mention that have absolutely no market for expenditure.

[Mike Christ]

There seems something logically fallacious in the notion that Bitcoin will succeed and Litecoin will fail despite the fact that Litecoin does what Bitcoin does. The assumption is that there can be only one given a lack of differences. What precedent is there for placing such concrete faith in this assumption?

Finally, there are technical differences and saying that there isn't over and over doesn't make it less true. Faster confirmation time is rather nice, imo and having an alternative for GPU/CPU miners in the face of ASIC (as a result of a technical difference) may create a real thriving market in the near future. It is not like some other alt-coins I will not mention that have absolutely no market for expenditure.

I believe people just find it odd to have more than one currency side by side.  I don't think very many people can say they were raised with competitors to the dollar   But if LTC succeeds, it'll likely be alongside BTC.  I don't see Bitcoin rolling over anytime soon but you never know!

[21after2]

Are not most of those criticisms applicable also to bitcoin (to varying degrees)?

Yes. This wiki is by no means objective, it is intentionally biased. Much of the declarative portions are entirely opinion. A proper wiki should highlight both sides of a controversy and should avoid leading the reader to a predetermined conclusion. This article achieves neither.

I agree. It's a very subjective analysis that reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia entry. It also feels like it relied less on actual documented criticisms (which do exist) and more on the opinions of a single person.

[Severian]

Litecoin is Salieri to Bitcoin's Mozart. They were both composers but we only really remember one of them for his innovation.

Mozart Vs Salieri

[trekky0623]

You expect the Bitcoin wiki to be unbiased? lol.

No, but seriously, litecoin has the same problems as bitcoin with the added handicap of not being as popular. The only thing different is the number of coins you can mine and their speed, which still presents the same problems bitcoin has of distribution and perceived deflation over time.

[weex]

The reason I follow Litecoin or hold any is because I believe people will still want to mine something with their GPUs when it's no longer profitable. As far as I know it's still marginally profitable to mine LTC. There are lots of GPUs out there which means lots of potential users. Other than that, I mean, the users...well what else REALLY matters besides users?

[whittsteve7]

The balance between LTC and BTC mining will shift with the introduction of ASICs but I do not think that it will all of a sudden become profitable to mine litecoin when your GPU become worthless for BTC...

That doesn't mean I don't have a few thousand litecoin around for fun.

[weex]

The other thing Litecoin has going for it is a relatively clean slate in terms of PR. No pirate, no SR, no Bitcoin hacks. Not saying analogues won't come but it'd be hard for the LTC community to be as affected or defined by them.

[foggyb]

Doesn't sound like there's much of anything happening with litecoin. 

[taltamir]

There seems to be suprising lack of focus on even litecoin's own website about what seems to me to be its biggest feature.
Litecoin crypt is based on RAM rather then parallelized math which makes it hostile to ASICs and GPUs.
A GPU is still faster (likely due to how obscenely fast GDDR is) but CPU mining is not obsoleted by it.

[toz]

There seems to be suprising lack of focus on even litecoin's own website about what seems to me to be its biggest feature.
Litecoin crypt is based on RAM rather then parallelized math which makes it hostile to ASICs and GPUs.
A GPU is still faster (likely due to how obscenely fast GDDR is) but CPU mining is not obsoleted by it.

How is it a feature that an attacker can easily retask a farm of general purpose CPUs or a botnet to launch a 51% attack and then use them for something else at low cost?

[myuser]

Well, my problem is that I don't have a GPU, so I can't mind Bitcoin, not like it'll be worth it now with ASICs.

[toz]

Well, my problem is that I don't have a GPU, so I can't mind Bitcoin, not like it'll be worth it now with ASICs.

Oh, I wasn't aware that "feature" could mean "bad decision that benefits you".

Update: My dictionary does say that "feature" can mean "a distinctive attribute or aspect of something." So, yeah, bad decisions can be features so long as they are distinctive.

[weex]

Sounds like somebody's not interested in coming to the Monthly Litecoin Mixer.