Flaws in the design of Litecoin..?

[No_2]

I read the following in an article on Litecoin – "because Litecoin is designed to be inefficient on all common computer components (both CPUs and GPUs), a malicious entity needs only produce a single piece of specialized/custom hardware to overtake all the commodity mining systems combined."

I'm not clear on what the specific 'inefficiencies' are, but if they are sufficient this could be a fairly major flaw in litecoin's design. Can anyone explain how this might be true and if so how it would work?

[tacotime]

The author is referring to a 51% attack and sounds like a ppc shill.

Litecoin code is very similar to bitcoin, multiplied by 4 and with scrypt.

[Monster Tent]

If someone created an ASIC for litecoin yes it would overtake most of the network. But that would be wildy un-economical at current market prices.

[Sunny King]

The author is referring to a 51% attack and sounds like a ppc shill.

Litecoin code is very similar to bitcoin, multiplied by 4 and with scrypt.

LOL why is he a ppc shill not btc shill?

I guess he means that once bitcoin's transition to ASIC is complete, litecoin would still be vulnerable to an institutional 51% attack (those who have the resources to custom build ASIC).

No I haven't read any such article yet so excuse me.

[No_2]

If someone created an ASIC for litecoin yes it would overtake most of the network. But that would be wildy un-economical at current market prices.

So if litecoin prices made it economically viable to produce a custom ASIC for mining what kind of difference in the rate of mining are we talking about here (to a rough order of magnitude). Because if sufficient that could be a pretty big killer for litecoin; both in terms of outcompeting the incumbent miners and assuming >50% of the hashrate.

[smoothie]

If someone created an ASIC for litecoin yes it would overtake most of the network. But that would be wildy un-economical at current market prices.

So if litecoin prices made it economically viable to produce a custom ASIC for mining what kind of difference in the rate of mining are we talking about here (to a rough order of magnitude). Because if sufficient that could be a pretty big killer for litecoin; both in terms of outcompeting the incumbent miners and assuming >50% of the hashrate.

It is all about distribution of hash power. Decentralized nature of bitcoin/litecoin is what makes it valuable.

Hashing power will be distributed as long as there isnt a single entity creating LTC asics.

[tacotime]

The author is referring to a 51% attack and sounds like a ppc shill.

Litecoin code is very similar to bitcoin, multiplied by 4 and with scrypt.

LOL why is he a ppc shill not btc shill?

I guess he means that once bitcoin's transition to ASIC is complete, litecoin would still be vulnerable to an institutional 51% attack (those who have the resources to custom build ASIC).

No I haven't read any such article yet so excuse me.

[tacotime]

If someone created an ASIC for litecoin yes it would overtake most of the network. But that would be wildy un-economical at current market prices.

So if litecoin prices made it economically viable to produce a custom ASIC for mining what kind of difference in the rate of mining are we talking about here (to a rough order of magnitude). Because if sufficient that could be a pretty big killer for litecoin; both in terms of outcompeting the incumbent miners and assuming >50% of the hashrate.

Coblee and laseek checkpoint the chain, so if someone does something silly like 51% or get a block of 21 billion coins we can roll back. The real question is why someone spending millions of dollars designing and taping out ASICs would destroy the only use they have for them.

[cdog]

Liecoin is about to get much, much more resistant to attacks. There is also a big wave of LTC products and services being developed.

Its about where BTC was a year ago, still in its infancy, but I think it really is going to turn out to be the silver to Bitcoins gold.

[kokojie]

I read the following in an article on Litecoin – "because Litecoin is designed to be inefficient on all common computer components (both CPUs and GPUs), a malicious entity needs only produce a single piece of specialized/custom hardware to overtake all the commodity mining systems combined."

I'm not clear on what the specific 'inefficiencies' are, but if they are sufficient this could be a fairly major flaw in litecoin's design. Can anyone explain how this might be true and if so how it would work?

It's some BS theory written by a well known LTC hater. If it were so easy, why didn't he build it already? sure ASIC can be built, a lot things can be done if you have money, but who would invest at least a million bucks to build a memory heavy ASIC unit that can do scrypt, just to mess with the LTC chain?

[No_2]

If someone created an ASIC for litecoin yes it would overtake most of the network. But that would be wildy un-economical at current market prices.

So if litecoin prices made it economically viable to produce a custom ASIC for mining what kind of difference in the rate of mining are we talking about here (to a rough order of magnitude). Because if sufficient that could be a pretty big killer for litecoin; both in terms of outcompeting the incumbent miners and assuming >50% of the hashrate.

Coblee and laseek checkpoint the chain, so if someone does something silly like 51% or get a block of 21 billion coins we can roll back. The real question is why someone spending millions of dollars designing and taping out ASICs would destroy the only use they have for them.

Does that mean the Litecoin block chain is centralised or Coblee and laseek would be relying on a consensus of >51% of nodes to agree to this?

[neotrix]

I read the following in an article on Litecoin – "because Litecoin is designed to be inefficient on all common computer components (both CPUs and GPUs), a malicious entity needs only produce a single piece of specialized/custom hardware to overtake all the commodity mining systems combined."

I'm not clear on what the specific 'inefficiencies' are, but if they are sufficient this could be a fairly major flaw in litecoin's design. Can anyone explain how this might be true and if so how it would work?

It's some BS theory written by a well known LTC hater. If it were so easy, why didn't he build it already? sure ASIC can be built, a lot things can be done if you have money, but who would invest at least a million bucks to build a memory heavy ASIC unit that can do scrypt, just to mess with the LTC chain?

+ 1

[SRoulette]

if someone does plan on building a litecoin asic please contact us first

[bushstar]

Worry about LTC ASICs when LTC FPGAs appear.

[mubit]

at the point where it would be economically viable to create, hashrate will have grown, meaning it has the same vulnerability as btc in this regard.

[tacotime]

Does that mean the Litecoin block chain is centralised or Coblee and laseek would be relying on a consensus of >51% of nodes to agree to this?

Only as much so at the bitcoin chain also is, as that's checkpointed constantly too.

See: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents#CVE-2010-5139

Checkpointing just means storing an older copy of the chain to revert to with an update that patches whatever bug is found.  The user base doesn't need to use the updated client if they don't want to, that's up to them.