Is Litecoin really really cheap right now? Or is it dying?

[kokojie]

...when you're not ignorant and have realized that Litecoin provides more usefulness than Bitcoin, but your dumb and old ass is in denial.

Apparently, the whole world is in denial and you're a special beautiful snowflake who has discovered a treasure and now you're waiting for the rest of society to catch up:

It's true Bitcoin is 100X more popular than Litecoin right now, but Litecoin is in the stage where Bitcoin was in 2009-2010, so it's not really fair to compare interest like that. Litecoin interest has continued to grow, just like Bitcoin did in 2009-2010:

[Zomdifros]

My guess is that there's room for at least a few more similar competing currencies to thrive, re: LTC is silver to BTC as gold.

Litecoin is crap.

Are there any alt cryptos that aren't?

I assume Bitcoin is to remain the dominant digital currency due to the network effect, it doesn't make much sense that a copy like litecoin, which doesn't really add any extra features, can be successful. A complementary system like ripple may be worth investing in, or other systems which can be used on top of Bitcoin.

[misterbigg]

Litecoin is crap.

Are there any alt cryptos that aren't?

My opinion? No. The only thing that shows any real promise is Ripple. There is no "Litecoin development." They just took the hard work that went into the Bitcoin client and change a few superficial things like the hashing method and the rate of block generation.

They didn't even address difficult issues like the maximum block size problem. Which, in Litecoin, is four times worse than Bitcoin (since there's only two and a half minutes between blocks).

The only reason that Litecoin has any interest or marginal value is because of Bitcoin's success; People who missed the Bitcoin boat are placing bets that they can get another chance if Litecoin skyrockets in value.

It is insulting that a script kiddie thinks he can just take the Bitcoin client, which was developed by thoughtful professionals, and change around a constant to build a better system. No real formal analysis or study went into the changes Litecoin made (or any other alt coin for that matter). Am I supposed to believe that some unknown schmuck has a brilliant insight that escaped the Bitcoin developers?

To me, Litecoin is like a snot nosed 13 year old taking a brush and adding dreadlocks to the Mona Lisa.

[kokojie]

My guess is that there's room for at least a few more similar competing currencies to thrive, re: LTC is silver to BTC as gold.

Litecoin is crap.

Are there any alt cryptos that aren't?

I assume Bitcoin is to remain the dominant digital currency due to the network effect, it doesn't make much sense that a copy like litecoin, which doesn't really add any extra features, can be successful. A complementary system like ripple may be worth investing in, or other systems which can be used on top of Bitcoin.

Litecoin has a different mining algorithm, 4X larger block size, 4X faster confirmation time, 4X more divisible. I wouldn't call it "doesn't really add any extra features". Bitcoin is facing the problem of reaching block size limit, there wouldn't be a problem if Litecoin was used as silver(transactional currency) and Bitcoin was used as gold(reserve currency).

[BitcoinINV]

I like the idea of litecoin, and I am going to support it in my business...... but. The lack of support for it has thus made it extremely hard to implement any thing in the way I have for bitcoin.
This kinda sucks cause it means I am going to have to do all the LTC transaction authorizations and stuff by hand.

[kokojie]

Litecoin is crap.

Are there any alt cryptos that aren't?

My opinion? No. The only thing that shows any real promise is Ripple. There is no "Litecoin development." They just took the hard work that went into the Bitcoin client and change a few superficial things like the hashing method and the rate of block generation.

They didn't even address difficult issues like the maximum block size problem. Which, in Litecoin, is ten times worse than Bitcoin (since there's only a minute between blocks).

The only reason that Litecoin has any interest or marginal value is because of Bitcoin's success; People who missed the Bitcoin boat are placing bets that they can get another chance if Litecoin skyrockets in value.

Explain to me why litecoin max block size is "10 times worse" than bitcoin? litecoin has 4X more blocks, so it in fact has 4X more max size for the same amount of transactions. For example, if both BTC and LTC is doing the same amount of transactions. If Bitcoin average block size reach 1MB and hit the limit, Litecoin would still be at 250kb, far from hitting the limit. How is this considered "10 times worse"?

[Zomdifros]

Litecoin has a different mining algorithm, 4X larger block size, 4X faster confirmation time, 4X more divisible. I wouldn't call it "doesn't really add any extra features". Bitcoin is facing the problem of reaching block size limit, there wouldn't be a problem if Litecoin was used as silver(transactional currency) and Bitcoin was used as gold(reserve currency).

If Bitcoin truly faced problems due to it reaching the block size limit (which I doubt), much better solutions than Litecoin could be thought of. The different mining algorithm isn't really a feature, it's just there to make sure Bitcoin miners can use their CPU to mine for litecoins while leaving the whole network much weaker. The faster confirmation time is pretty much useless. I consider Litecoin and most other altcoins to be elaborate scams to profit from Bitcoin development.

[misterbigg]

Explain to me why litecoin max block size is "10 times worse" than bitcoin? litecoin has 4X more blocks...

I thought Litecoin used 1 minute blocks, my mistake. I updated my post. So, the max block problem is only four times worse. Here's why:

If having a maximum block size is a problem, then both Bitcoin and Litecoin will suffer from it. Litecoin does quadruple the maximum rate of allowable transactions, from Bitcoin's 7 per second to Litecoin's 28 per second. But 28 is still quite low for many purposes. Both Litecoin and Bitcoin will need to raise the maximum block size at some point.

With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%.

Now imagine that we double the block size (a conservative measure). The amount of time consumed by downloading now becomes 3.33% for Bitcoin, and a whopping 13.33% for Litecoin! The Bitcoin network has lost 1.6% of its total hashing power, while Litecoin has lost an astounding 6.66% of its hashing power. Every increase in the block size will hurt the total hashing power of Litecoin four times as much as it would for Bitcoin.

The reason that hashing power goes down when block size goes up is because mining cannot begin until the new block has been downloaded. Since the time between blocks is constant, any increase in the time required to download will cause a decrease in the amount of time available for hashing. This is true for both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

The point is that the "developers" of Litecoin are not really developers at all. They took Bitcoin and simply hacked it without having the knowledge and experience of true cryptocurrency developers.

Litecoin is a fucking joke.

[kokojie]

Litecoin has a different mining algorithm, 4X larger block size, 4X faster confirmation time, 4X more divisible. I wouldn't call it "doesn't really add any extra features". Bitcoin is facing the problem of reaching block size limit, there wouldn't be a problem if Litecoin was used as silver(transactional currency) and Bitcoin was used as gold(reserve currency).

If Bitcoin truly faced problems due to it reaching the block size limit (which I doubt), much better solutions than Litecoin could be thought of. The different mining algorithm isn't really a feature, it's just there to make sure Bitcoin miners can use their CPU to mine for litecoins while leaving the whole network much weaker. The faster confirmation time is pretty much useless. I consider Litecoin and most other altcoins to be elaborate scams to profit from Bitcoin development.

You can use GPU to mine litecoin, the scrypt algorithm was implemented to prevent ASIC from having a big advantage over GPU. The network is not weaker for it, but in fact stronger, since GPU is still viable, it wouldn't be controlled by a few rich ASIC monopolies that could afford to invest in risky/specialized hardware that can't be used for anything else.

I wouldn't call 4X faster confirmation useless, like I said before, I can be pretty certain a 2 confirmation litecoin transaction is secure, while a bitcoin transaction would probably still be 0 conf at this point. The time saving is immensely useful for services that require 3-6 confirmations.

[misterbigg]

...it wouldn't be controlled by a few rich ASIC monopolies that could afford to invest in risky/specialized hardware that can't be used for anything else.

Cheap ASICs allow a much bigger audience of users than buying backplanes with tons of slots, an array of video cards, and elaborate cooling systems. Case in point, I have never mined using GPUs or FPGAs because it's too expensive, cumbersome, and bulky. But I did place an order for a $150 BFL Jalapeno. I know many others in the same boat.

Your premise that ASICs will centralize control is completely false. Just the opposite in fact, ASICs further decentralize the network by lowering the barrier to mining accessibility.

[markm]

You left out the fact that the first two doublings of amount of block space per ten minutes have already been done in litecoin. So when bitcoin first doubles, litecoin already did that, nothing to do yet. The next time bitcoin doubles, it finally catches up with where litecoin already is. It is only after that that litecoin needs to keep up; so far it is two doublings ahead.

Not to mention (but I will anyway) that litecoin already accepts that parallelism gets more scalability than serial increase. More blockchains is more scalable than bigger blockchains. Litecoin embraces that by already itself being an additional blockchain; some bitcoiners still seem to think it is vital to have only one blockchain in the whole universe, that bitcoin is so fragile, so precarious, that any other blockchains are a threat to it.

-MarkM-

[kokojie]

Explain to me why litecoin max block size is "10 times worse" than bitcoin? litecoin has 4X more blocks...

I thought Litecoin used 1 minute blocks, my mistake. I updated my post. So, the max block problem is only four times worse. Here's why:

If having a maximum block size is a problem, then both Bitcoin and Litecoin will suffer from it. Litecoin does quadruple the maximum rate of allowable transactions, from Bitcoin's 7 per second to Litecoin's 28 per second. But 28 is still quite low for many purposes. Both Litecoin and Bitcoin will need to raise the maximum block size at some point.

With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%.

Now imagine that we double the block size (a conservative measure). The amount of time consumed by downloading now becomes 3.33% for Bitcoin, and a whopping 13.33% for Litecoin! The Bitcoin network has lost 1.6% of its total hashing power, while Litecoin has lost an astounding 6.66% of its hashing power. Every increase in the block size will hurt the total hashing power of Litecoin four times as much as it would for Bitcoin.

The reason that hashing power goes down when block size goes up is because mining cannot begin until the new block has been downloaded. Since the time between blocks is constant, any increase in the time required to download will cause a decrease in the amount of time available for hashing. This is true for both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

The point is that the "developers" of Litecoin are not really developers at all. They took Bitcoin and simply hacked it without having the knowledge and experience of true cryptocurrency developers.

Litecoin is a fucking joke.

I'm not convinced that downloading a block could be a big problem, since given that both Bitcoin and Litecoin mining has operated for a long time without problem, and Both coins has never been successfully attacked by 51%. Decrease in hash power is the same for everyone that has to download a block, so what's the problem?

Whether Litecoin developers is competent or not, is your own opinion. I think Litecoin works well enough and they did a good job if they are not true developers. Litecoin is based on Bitcoin, so as long as Bitcoin has true developers, Litecoin can just keep using Bitcoin development as a basis. I don't think it's a problem.

[vdragon]

My guess is that there's room for at least a few more similar competing currencies to thrive, re: LTC is silver to BTC as gold.

If they function similarly, couldn't there be a ton of value in having LTC as a hedge? If this is true, why is the price stagnating while BTC is rising so steady and fast?

If Litecoin is useless, does that make all other alternative cryptos useless?

I know I ask a lot of questions..

  I made some litecoins and exchanged them to bitcoins. I dont see the point in an alt chain, besides as a mixer for btc.

[misterbigg]

You left out the fact that the first two doublings of amount of block space per ten minutes have already been done in litecoin. So when bitcoin first doubles, litecoin already did that, nothing to do yet. The next time bitcoin doubles, it finally catches up with where litecoin already is. It is only after that that litecin needs to keep up; so far it is two doublings ahead.

Not really. Lets say that both Bitcoin and Litecoin blocks average 500 KB each. Now, imagine that the transaction volume doubles for both currencies, producing 1 MB per block. We're still under the block limit for both currencies. However, Litecoin will suffer four times the amount of reduction in hashing power.

[misterbigg]

I'm not convinced that downloading a block could be a big problem

Reading comprehension for the loss. Do you understand that increasing block size means decreasing hash rate, and that Litecoin will lose hashing power four times as quickly as Bitcoin for the same increase in transaction volume?

[kokojie]

You left out the fact that the first two doublings of amount of block space per ten minutes have already been done in litecoin. So when bitcoin first doubles, litecoin already did that, nothing to do yet. The next time bitcoin doubles, it finally catches up with where litecoin already is. It is only after that that litecin needs to keep up; so far it is two doublings ahead.

-MarkM-

Problem is currently Bitcoin developers has no plan to actually create a hard fork and increase the block size, because a hard fork may weaken the confidence in Bitcoin. So it's possible for Bitcoin to remain 1MB block size and become a reserve currency. Litecoin can step in and handle the daily small transactions. Even if when a hard fork is required, we can just fork Litecoin, which would have less significance, and leave Bitcoin forever untouched as a reserve currency.

[kokojie]

I'm not convinced that downloading a block could be a big problem

Reading comprehension for the loss. Do you understand that increasing block size means decreasing hash rate, and that Litecoin will lose hashing power four times as quickly as Bitcoin for the same increase in transaction volume?

Yes I understand your theory of losing hash power, but what I don't understand is why is that a problem? the decrease in hash power would be the same for everyone that is mining, correct?

[misterbigg]

Yes I understand your theory of losing hash power, but what I don't understand is why is that a problem? the decrease in hash power would be the same for everyone that is mining, correct?

No, and no. The decrease in hashing power for a particular miner is in inverse proportion to their bandwidth. The miners with the highest bandwidth, will lose very little hashing power while the miners with the lowest bandwidth will lose the most. Litecoin's fast block times makes worse the very thing that they hoped to solve: centralization of miners.

But even if we ignore the centralization of mining power, the total hash rate is what determines the security of the coin. Both Bitcoin and Litecoin will lose some total hashing power as transaction volume increases, but Litecoin will lose hashing power four times faster. That means that Litecoin's security goes down four times as quickly as Bitcoin as transaction rates increase. This is a good thing?

[Deprived]

Explain to me why litecoin max block size is "10 times worse" than bitcoin? litecoin has 4X more blocks...

I thought Litecoin used 1 minute blocks, my mistake. I updated my post. So, the max block problem is only four times worse. Here's why:

If having a maximum block size is a problem, then both Bitcoin and Litecoin will suffer from it. Litecoin does quadruple the maximum rate of allowable transactions, from Bitcoin's 7 per second to Litecoin's 28 per second. But 28 is still quite low for many purposes. Both Litecoin and Bitcoin will need to raise the maximum block size at some point.

With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%.

Now imagine that we double the block size (a conservative measure). The amount of time consumed by downloading now becomes 3.33% for Bitcoin, and a whopping 13.33% for Litecoin! The Bitcoin network has lost 1.6% of its total hashing power, while Litecoin has lost an astounding 6.66% of its hashing power. Every increase in the block size will hurt the total hashing power of Litecoin four times as much as it would for Bitcoin.

The reason that hashing power goes down when block size goes up is because mining cannot begin until the new block has been downloaded. Since the time between blocks is constant, any increase in the time required to download will cause a decrease in the amount of time available for hashing. This is true for both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

The point is that the "developers" of Litecoin are not really developers at all. They took Bitcoin and simply hacked it without having the knowledge and experience of true cryptocurrency developers.

Litecoin is a fucking joke.

Major math fail above.

The amount of data that needs to be stored in the block chain for X transactions is essentially identical for LTC and BTC.  Difference is that LTC spreads it over more blocks.  As far as block-CHAIN size is concerned, the LTC chain will grow in size faster due entirely to there being more blocks generated NOT because of transactions.

If BTC and LTC had the same number of transactions per hour (and it was a large number such that the per-block overhead was pretty irrelevant) then each LTC block would be 1/4 the size of a BTC one - but there'd be 4 times as many of them.  That ends up being the SAME amount of data downloaded per hour.

IF your argument is that LTC having block-sized doubled more times makes it worse then problem is that IF there were sufficent transactions to NEED that extra space then you're arguing that LTC is worse because it does it slowly whilst BTC can't do it at all.

THis bit shows your ignorance at its best:

"With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%."

Well if it takes the same amount of time to download for both and we already know there's 4 times as many LTC blocks then you're comparing an LTC with FOUR TIMES the transactions/hour of BTC to BTC then whining that it would be 4 times as bad.  Hardly a surprise is it?  If there's 4 times as many blocks then each block is going to contain 1/4 the transactions and be about 1/4 the size (assuming same rate of transactions/hour) and will take 1/4 the time to download.  Surely that's not too hard for you to understand?

[misterbigg]

Surely that's not too hard for you to understand?

The unstated assumption in my analysis is that the transaction volume for Litecoin is four times that of Bitcoin.

Regardless, Litecoin is still crap.