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

[rTech]

i've been trying to find the litecoin network hash rate..

http://www.litecoinpool.org/stats
https://vircurex.com/

these 2 sources indicate its about 0.5 Ghash/s.... that seems really low... like 1 GPU for the whole network?

please explain where i'm messing up cuz i assume i'm wrong here.

your avatar says it all

[sinner]

it was a legit question.. theres clearly something i dont understand about litecoins or the network.  would appreciate if somebody could clarify for me. thanks.

[Endgame]

i've been trying to find the litecoin network hash rate..

http://www.litecoinpool.org/stats
https://vircurex.com/

these 2 sources indicate its about 0.5 Ghash/s.... that seems really low... like 1 GPU for the whole network?

please explain where i'm messing up cuz i assume i'm wrong here.

You need to take into account the fact that litecoin uses a different mining algorithm, which has a hashing speed around 1000 times slower than bitcoin's. So as I understand it a litecoin hash rate of 0.5 Gh/s would be the equivalent of a bitcoin hash rate of 500 Gh/s.   

[El Cabron]

i've been trying to find the litecoin network hash rate..

http://www.litecoinpool.org/stats
https://vircurex.com/

these 2 sources indicate its about 0.5 Ghash/s.... that seems really low... like 1 GPU for the whole network?

please explain where i'm messing up cuz i assume i'm wrong here.

You need to take into account the fact that litecoin uses a different mining algorithm, which has a hashing speed around 1000 times slower than bitcoin's. So as I understand it a litecoin hash rate of 0.5 Gh/s would be the equivalent of a bitcoin hash rate of 500 Gh/s.   

More or less this.

[kokojie]

i've been trying to find the litecoin network hash rate..

http://www.litecoinpool.org/stats
https://vircurex.com/

these 2 sources indicate its about 0.5 Ghash/s.... that seems really low... like 1 GPU for the whole network?

please explain where i'm messing up cuz i assume i'm wrong here.

Litecoin uses scrypt algorithm, which is roughly 1000X slower, so 0.5 Ghash/s is actually about 500GH in Bitcoin term, BUT there's another twist, scrypt not only require processing power, but also memory, for each GPU, you'll need roughly 512mb - 1GB of RAM per GPU depending on your GPU power. So it is slightly more expensive in this aspect, so I believe 0.5 GH is more like 750GH in Bitcoin terms, given that significant amount of fast RAM investment is required to mine.

[cdog]

Overall Im very bullish on LTC, because the value right now is so good and the upside is so so big. When BTC gets even bigger, say $50 per BTC, I think LTC will really start jumping and withing 2-3 years I could easily see LTC being at 1:1 parity with the $USD. It doesnt take a mathematicologist to see the benefit in holding a few thousand of them. Also, a lot of GPU miners people will start mining them when ASIC hits and they give up on BTC, and more people holding onto LTC means more people buying stuff with them, a bigger economy, and the huge benefit of being BTC's little brother when BTC really hits the mainstream.

[weex]

The http://litecoin.org page has been updated.

[nameface]

The http://litecoin.org page has been updated.

good work on coindl.com weex, sweet site

[nwbitcoin]

As a newbie to Crypto Currency I am being reminded of the Linux Distro wars by all this name calling!

Red Hat, Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu and Android all started from the same place, but each lead to the next, and with some real commercial thinking, ended up in the mainstream minus most of its idealism and technical issues!

The point I am trying to make is that in the grand scheme of things, its very rare that the inventor of a new form of anything becomes the dominant player in the market they create.

The names from the past haunt us, Commodore, Atari, Yahoo, Compaq, ICQ, to name just 5 companies who were 1st to market, but are no longer known for doing what they started!

Litecoin seems a good idea, and we will all make a little profit from it, but I doubt that either bitcoin or litecoin are going to be the names that pop over the tipping point of mass acceptance.

That is going to take a lot of dollars!

[kokojie]

As a newbie to Crypto Currency I am being reminded of the Linux Distro wars by all this name calling!

Red Hat, Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu and Android all started from the same place, but each lead to the next, and with some real commercial thinking, ended up in the mainstream minus most of its idealism and technical issues!

The point I am trying to make is that in the grand scheme of things, its very rare that the inventor of a new form of anything becomes the dominant player in the market they create.

The names from the past haunt us, Commodore, Atari, Yahoo, Compaq, ICQ, to name just 5 companies who were 1st to market, but are no longer known for doing what they started!

Litecoin seems a good idea, and we will all make a little profit from it, but I doubt that either bitcoin or litecoin are going to be the names that pop over the tipping point of mass acceptance.

That is going to take a lot of dollars!

In hardware, and to a lesser extent software, yes the first mover rarely have the last laugh. But on the web, it's a different story, first mover has significant advantage. Case in point->Youtube, I can't see how another video site can topple youtube's dominance. or Google the first site to build a good search engine in 2003, is still the dominant search engine 10 years later. or Facebook, first real name SNS from 2004, still the dominant real name SNS 9 years later.

[Peter Lambert]

In hardware, and to a lesser extent software, yes the first mover rarely have the last laugh. But on the web, it's a different story, first mover has significant advantage. Case in point->Youtube, I can't see how another video site can topple youtube's dominance. or Google the first site to build a good search engine in 2003, is still the dominant search engine 10 years later. or Facebook, first real name SNS from 2004, still the dominant real name SNS 9 years later.

When having these discussions, people usually bring up Facebook on the other side of the argument, as the supplanter of MySpace. Could you go into more detail of how Facebook was something new, rather than just a better version of MySpace? Also, Google is usually said to have replaced Yahoo as the dominant search tool, could you elaborate on that too?

[kokojie]

In hardware, and to a lesser extent software, yes the first mover rarely have the last laugh. But on the web, it's a different story, first mover has significant advantage. Case in point->Youtube, I can't see how another video site can topple youtube's dominance. or Google the first site to build a good search engine in 2003, is still the dominant search engine 10 years later. or Facebook, first real name SNS from 2004, still the dominant real name SNS 9 years later.

When having these discussions, people usually bring up Facebook on the other side of the argument, as the supplanter of MySpace. Could you go into more detail of how Facebook was something new, rather than just a better version of MySpace? Also, Google is usually said to have replaced Yahoo as the dominant search tool, could you elaborate on that too?

Yahoo was never a real search engine, it started as a directory site, and added search as an after thought. It never had true search engine capabilities. After Google's success, Yahoo tried to compete by purchasing the search company "overture", but then it ran that to the ground, now it just uses Microsoft's Bing.com engine, Yahoo doesn't even have its own search engine now. Google on the other hand started as a true search engine and built many things on top of that, but search is the foundation of Google.

Myspace is just an upgraded version of Friendster, both lacked a large amount of essential SNS functionality that Facebook later developed. Basically, MySpace and Friendster were early, but they lacked function, they do not even utilize ajax, which Facebook heavily used. I could send message to my friends, post status updates, upload pictures without ever refreshing my Facebook page, impossible to do with MySpace. Also MySpace allowing the user upload insane amount of crap on their page, didn't help. I remember 90% of MySpace page were littered with autoplay mp3 and video, flashy effects and colorful backgrounds. Google was right, speed is King. The average MySpace page took 5-10 seconds to fully load, on the other hand Facebook was lightning fast to load and use.

[ElectricMucus]

Uh I remember using yahoo in 1996 or something, for searching so it definitely had search engine capabilities before google came along.

[nwbitcoin]

In hardware, and to a lesser extent software, yes the first mover rarely have the last laugh. But on the web, it's a different story, first mover has significant advantage. Case in point->Youtube, I can't see how another video site can topple youtube's dominance. or Google the first site to build a good search engine in 2003, is still the dominant search engine 10 years later. or Facebook, first real name SNS from 2004, still the dominant real name SNS 9 years later.

First rule of history, the victor writes it!

Youtube started as a hot or not site, but added video - bought by Google 18 months later, for far too much money, and slowly an attention monopoly is created!

Google were very late to the search engine party - I was using it in 1998 because it was the one that worked, and it was cool, unlike Altavista which looked awful!

Facebook didn't really add anything new to what already existed - except exclusivity - it was the social network you couldn't join unless you were in Harvard or a another nice university - so everyone wanted to join!

All the social stuff had been invented earlier and worked well for ICQ in 1996, but without that mainstream push, nothing happened - although ICQ became QQ and is being used by the Asian half of the world today!

The history of bitcoin will easily be as exciting to read in hindsight!

[kokojie]

Uh I remember using yahoo in 1996 or something, for searching so it definitely had search engine capabilities before google came along.

Yes it had search, but so does bitcointalk, you wouldn't call it a search engine. Yahoo was a directory site at its foundation, not a search engine.

yahoo in 1996:

[bitcool]

It's called Altavista.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista

oh God I feel old  

[meebs]

In hardware, and to a lesser extent software, yes the first mover rarely have the last laugh. But on the web, it's a different story, first mover has significant advantage. Case in point->Youtube, I can't see how another video site can topple youtube's dominance. or Google the first site to build a good search engine in 2003, is still the dominant search engine 10 years later. or Facebook, first real name SNS from 2004, still the dominant real name SNS 9 years later.

When having these discussions, people usually bring up Facebook on the other side of the argument, as the supplanter of MySpace. Could you go into more detail of how Facebook was something new, rather than just a better version of MySpace? Also, Google is usually said to have replaced Yahoo as the dominant search tool, could you elaborate on that too?

Facebook initially was unique with a nice clean interface, and private networks within a university. This uniqueness and how it kind of made college socializing a bit different and more interesting caused it to grow greatly in popularity. Over time as it got released to more and more people it just kind of took over the scene.

[imanikin]

Overall Im very bullish on LTC, because the value right now is so good and the upside is so so big.
...

I think LTC would be perfect for arbitrage traders to jump funds from one xchange to another.

Sometimes one needs to do that in something other than B, and doing it in fiat is a slow, expensive hassle...

Seems that if more xchanges besides BTC-E offered LTC funding, that would help arbitrage traders, and all xchanges also.

Maybe i am missing some reason why the xchange operators are not doing that? 

[mubit]

Overall Im very bullish on LTC, because the value right now is so good and the upside is so so big.
...

I think LTC would be perfect for arbitrage traders to jump funds from one xchange to another.

Sometimes one needs to do that in something other than B, and doing it in fiat is a slow, expensive hassle...

Seems that if more xchanges besides BTC-E offered LTC funding, that would help arbitrage traders, and all xchanges also.

Maybe i am missing some reason why the xchange operators are not doing that? 

perhaps if vircurex can get their act together

[imanikin]

perhaps if vircurex can get their act together

I actually hope none of the current xchanges get their act together, and all the B trading moves to a cheaper, distributed, p2p platform, such as Ripple, once they build up the trading infrastructure, or a dark xchange, if necessary. 

The centralized xchanges are really part of the old Wall-Street-middlemen trading model, which is kind of annoying, and should go away with the banks asap, with all its insiders, KYC, AML, self-serving regulations favoring the largest traders, too-big-to-fail, etcetera.

As it stands right now, we simply traded the old, expensive, centralized, banking/brokerage middlemen for cheaper ones...