Litecoiners: Idea to make Litecoin importance skyrocket in Bitcoin ecosystem

[MAD_MAD]

Back on topic I think it would be beneficial to both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

So far, it is basically a rather contrived and complicated block backup mechanism so you could counteract and/or recover from a "bad" reorg.

I am not convinced it would benefit anyone.

[Anon136]

I could get behind this fork, it sounds like a great idea.

[tgsrge]

Sorry to be rude, but I really can't stand the way old school bitcoiners act and talk about Litecoin.

This is what your OP sounds like to me: Litecoiners... protect my big stash of Bitcoins, after securing my nest egg, then in return I will make a lot of money in return by selling physical Litecoins to you guys.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good idea. I am somewhere in the middle of the two extremes:
Litecoiners/Bitcoiners: That's a wonderful idea!
Litecoiners: We don't need Bitcoin, nor are we going to be Bitcoin's subservient guard dog, let the ship sink!

Old school bitcoiners seem to just not get the value and use that LTC can have in the future. You blindly ignore the traits Litecoin has that so many people already see (which is why it's up to 2.30 from .07 months ago.) I'll spare you the time of listing off some of the good traits of Litecoin because I know you know them all already, you are just blinded by your big ole pile of Bitcoins.

IMHO Litecoin is doing just fine without this and it will continue to do just fine without this. Bitcoin needs this more than Litecoin needs this. If you can't see the usefulness in Litecoin at this point in its development, then just get to steppin'... we don't need you.

/rant

let's try to keep egos out of this. i couldnt care less what bitcoiners think of litecoin as long as this is beneficial for both sides...and if you look at the big picture, YES, it COULD be highly beneficial to all involved.

I don't see why Litecoin is required here.

I mean, I realize it is, essentially, a large backup tape, in this scenario.

But what exactly prevents BTC from, just, you know, keeping the reorged-away blocks for a little while longer and pleading the node operator to investigate "suspect" reorg when it occurs ?
Both solutions provide, essentially, the same functionality - block material is kept around for a while longer, so that human-op can decide which side of a fork he likes the best. But one requires mutual inter-operation between two cryptocurrency nets, while the other does not.

I, so far, fail to see the advantages to the "inter-operation" scenario beyond "let's give litecoin a sense of purpose" and "it would be a shame if GPU miners starve".

nobody is trying to give litecoin a sense of purpose. litecoin already has a purpose. many purposes actually. only those who chose to willfully be blinded are unable to see it.

and the reason why litecoin is "required" is simple: litecoin is still small/early enough to be adopting these kinds of things. It's much easier to make it happen in litecoin than to make it happen in bitcoin.

edit:

So far, it is basically a rather contrived and complicated block backup mechanism so you could counteract and/or recover from a "bad" reorg.

I am not convinced it would benefit anyone.

How is preventing large malicious reorgs/chains that spring out of thin air and ruin all confidence in bitcoin "not beneficial" ?

[CoinHoarder]

What development  

Back on topic I think it would be beneficial to both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

There are new projects being announced for LTC every day and there are a lot of exciting things are in the works. Also, more and more websites and stores are accepting LTC by the minute.

Bitcoin wasn't developed over night and neither will Litecoin. It is a slow and steady process, but there's definitely development going on and you'd be foolish to think otherwise.

[MAD_MAD]

nobody is trying to give litecoin a sense of purpose. litecoin already has a purpose. many purposes actually.

1) slightly faster transactions (to accommodate the needs of...... )

2) an ex-CPU friendly - now GPU friendly - POW (to accommodate all the GPU miners who are about to be pushed out of business)

3) A general sense of hope for those who failed to get on the bitcoin train in time (to accommodate all those who failed to get on the bitcoin train in time)

4)  

...

Well, I admit, technically, that makes 3, hence, "many"  

and the reason why litecoin is "required" is simple: litecoin is still small/early enough to be adopting these kinds of things. It's much easier to make it happen in litecoin than to make it happen in bitcoin.

Which "these" "things" ?

being bitcoin's big and, as far as I can tell, not really necessary, backup tape ? That's some ambition, there

[steak-knife]

What development  

Back on topic I think it would be beneficial to both Bitcoin and Litecoin.

There are new projects being announced for LTC every day and there are a lot of exciting things are in the works. Also, more and more websites and stores are accepting LTC by the minute.

Bitcoin wasn't developed over night and neither will Litecoin. It is a slow and steady process, but there's definitely development going on and you'd be foolish to think otherwise.

I've read that Litecoin will be forever Bitcoin minus one in the development stakes. A project like this could really test the Litecoin devs and show that they're capable of doing something without seeing how the Bitcoin devs did it first.

[casascius]

Sorry to be rude, but I really can't stand the way old school bitcoiners act and talk about Litecoin.

I can understand that.  Old school bitcoiners don't see what problem Litecoin solves, but can see how it's a distraction to Bitcoin.

This is what your OP sounds like to me: Litecoiners... protect my big stash of Bitcoins, after securing my nest egg, then in return I will make a lot of money by selling physical Litecoins to you guys.

Responses like this focus on the wrong things.  Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.  The presumption you're offering is that I'm proposing something like this for personal financial gain, oblivious to the big picture as to why cryptocurrency was created in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good idea. I am somewhere in the middle of the two extremes:
Litecoiners/Bitcoiners: That's a wonderful idea!
Litecoiners: We don't need Bitcoin, nor are we going to be Bitcoin's subservient guard dog, let the ship sink!

You seem to underestimate just exactly how tethered Litecoin is to Bitcoin.  Unless Bitcoin sinks due to an attack that Litecoin is immune to, Litecoin is going down with any systemic/sociopolitical/reputational Bitcoin failure, because it is Bitcoin with a different logo.

Old school bitcoiners seem to just not get the value and use that LTC can have in the future. You blindly ignore the good things about Litecoin that so many people already see (which is why it's up to 2.30 from .07 months ago.) I'll spare you the time of listing off some of the good traits of Litecoin because I know you know them all already, you are just blinded by your big ole pile of Bitcoins.

Perhaps old school bitcoiners define value a different way.  A solution to a world problem has value.  A cure for cancer has value.  A cure for cooties does not.  A hypothetical solution to a nonexistent problem does not.  I think I have already listed off both of the good traits of Litecoin of material significance and if there are any more, they're worth taking the time to point out, so as to dispel the appearance that they don't exist.  Litecoin may as well capitalize on its actual strengths... arrogance that it's better than Bitcoin would not be one of them.

The fact that people learning about Bitcoin for the first time also hear about and become interested in Litecoin is a rational explanation for its rise in nominal value.  That doesn't make it any more inherently valuable for any reason beyond increased awareness and popularity.  The preschooler star on Honey Boo Boo is more "valuable" than she was two years ago, but not for any intrinsic attribute of her own.

IMHO Litecoin is doing just fine without this and it will continue to do just fine without this. Bitcoin needs this more than Litecoin needs this. If you can't see the usefulness in Litecoin at this point in its development, then just get to steppin'... we don't need you.

Seems to me that the value of a Litecoin is strongly in lockstep with the value of a Bitcoin.  Litecoin needs Bitcoin more than Bitcoin needs Litecoin... that's already a fact today.  Fortunately I think the majority of LTC users understand this, but feel free to prove me wrong.

[bitcoiners]

You seem to underestimate just exactly how tethered Litecoin is to Bitcoin.  Unless Bitcoin sinks due to an attack that Litecoin is immune to, Litecoin is going down with any systemic/sociopolitical/reputational Bitcoin failure, because it is Bitcoin with a different logo.

Actually on LTC/BTC today litecoin has actually gained on bitcoin.  Meanwhile BTC is dropping like a stone and LTC is not.

So much for being tethered.

Cheers.

[casascius]

You seem to underestimate just exactly how tethered Litecoin is to Bitcoin.  Unless Bitcoin sinks due to an attack that Litecoin is immune to, Litecoin is going down with any systemic/sociopolitical/reputational Bitcoin failure, because it is Bitcoin with a different logo.

Actually on LTC/BTC today litecoin has actually gained on bitcoin.  Meanwhile BTC is dropping like a stone and LTC is not.

So, my assertion that Litecoin's future is tethered to Bitcoin's is in error, because of one day's worth of market activity?  (or one month's? or one year's?)

[bitcoiners]

You seem to underestimate just exactly how tethered Litecoin is to Bitcoin.  Unless Bitcoin sinks due to an attack that Litecoin is immune to, Litecoin is going down with any systemic/sociopolitical/reputational Bitcoin failure, because it is Bitcoin with a different logo.

Actually on LTC/BTC today litecoin has actually gained on bitcoin.  Meanwhile BTC is dropping like a stone and LTC is not.

So, my assertion that Litecoin's future is tethered to Bitcoin's is in error, because of one day's worth of market activity?  (or one month's? or one year's?)

Like I said dude.  Keep yapping.  LTC is going to Gox whether you like it or not.  LTC does not need BTC.  BTC actually needs LTC for security as you've already stated in your OP. 

Cheers

[CoinHoarder]

My apologies Casascius, I did not mean to turn this into a Bitcoin versus Litecoin war of words. If you can't see what makes Litecoin valuable at this point in time, then I do not think you ever will, so there's no need for me to rehash old arguments here.

At the end of the day, your idea would benefit both Litecoiners and Bitcoiners, and I think that's great. I just don't think Litecoin needs this as much as you are implying. I also don't think it should be 100% up to Litecoin developers to implement something like this, Bitcoin developers should help with it as well because it greatly benefits them too. Perhaps you should post your OP here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0

You may get more serious responses there and less trolling... us Litecoiners are used to Bitcoiners coming over to the ALT forum and putting Litecoin down and spreading FUD, so naturally we are defensive when it comes to our kid, as bitcoiners are to Bitcoin. You don't seem to be the average Bitcoin troll, so I apologize for jumping to that conclusion.

[meanig]

Like I said dude.  Keep yapping.  LTC is going to Gox whether you like it or not.  LTC does not need BTC.  BTC actually needs LTC for security as you've already stated in your OP. 

Cheers

Coblee has stated that he's going to keep Litecoin one release behind Bitcoin. How does that make Litecoin not dependent on Bitcoin 

[casascius]

If you can't see what makes Litecoin valuable at this point in time, then I do not think you ever will, so there's no need for me to rehash old arguments here.

I actually want to see what makes Litecoin valuable, as then I'd probably want to buy some and undertake efforts to support it.  The way I see it, if nobody can say what makes Litecoin valuable in a clear and concise manner, then the simple assertion that it's valuable isn't persuasive.  Its nominal price having gone up on the market charts doesn't make it valuable.  I can't argue in favor of Litecoin's value at the moment even if I try, other than to point out that it has some enthusiastic supporters getting some attention.  That's pretty much it... the value is in the enthusiasm, which alone is of limited usefulness, and importantly, permanence.

I just don't think Litecoin needs this as much as you are implying.

Sure.  Litecoin doesn't need anything per se.  But surely the Litecoin community values being valued, and there's no reason to assume that there wouldn't be an interest in being valued more.

You may get more serious responses there and less trolling... us Litecoiners are used to Bitcoiners coming over to the ALT forum and putting Litecoin down and spreading FUD, so naturally we are defensive when it comes to our kid, as are bitcoiners to Bitcoin..

This will happen less, and will be less irritating, when the Litecoin community can be defensive with meritorious answers based in rational argument, framed in terms of how Litecoin benefits society above and beyond Bitcoin, rather than arguments based on market charts and Litecoin's presumed value to those holding Litecoins.

[Brunic]

Like I said dude.  Keep yapping.  LTC is going to Gox whether you like it or not.  LTC does not need BTC.  BTC actually needs LTC for security as you've already stated in your OP. 

Cheers

Coblee has stated that he's going to keep Litecoin one release behind Bitcoin. How does that make Litecoin not dependent on Bitcoin 

Bitcoin is testing the waters for Litecoin. In a way, Bitcoin development is more risky than Litecoin, because if BTC break due to a recent development problem, it will not affect Litecoin.

As an example, look at the last fork that happened to Bitcoin. Litecoin wasn't affected and we know how to prevent it since Bitcoin tested it before Litecoin did.

[bitcoiners]

Like I said dude.  Keep yapping.  LTC is going to Gox whether you like it or not.  LTC does not need BTC.  BTC actually needs LTC for security as you've already stated in your OP.  

Cheers

Coblee has stated that he's going to keep Litecoin one release behind Bitcoin. How does that make Litecoin not dependent on Bitcoin  

Bitcoin is testing the waters for Litecoin. In a way, Bitcoin development is more risky than Litecoin, because if BTC break due to a recent development problem, it will not affect Litecoin.

As an example, look at the last fork that happened to Bitcoin. Litecoin wasn't affected and we know how to prevent it since Bitcoin tested it before Litecoin did.

Amen.... Bitcoin needs LTC more than LTC needs BTC.  Period.

And thanks to asics, BTC's need for help from LTC has just quadrupled.  There is zero reason for LTC to become BTC's bitch now.   It's bitcoiners that need ltc help not the other way around.  And unless it's mutual. I see no reason to help them as they've kept us down from the beginning.

Bitcoiners in general need to wake up.

[meanig]

Like I said dude.  Keep yapping.  LTC is going to Gox whether you like it or not.  LTC does not need BTC.  BTC actually needs LTC for security as you've already stated in your OP.  

Cheers

Coblee has stated that he's going to keep Litecoin one release behind Bitcoin. How does that make Litecoin not dependent on Bitcoin  

Bitcoin is testing the waters for Litecoin. In a way, Bitcoin development is more risky than Litecoin, because if BTC break due to a recent development problem, it will not affect Litecoin.

As an example, look at the last fork that happened to Bitcoin. Litecoin wasn't affected and we know how to prevent it since Bitcoin tested it before Litecoin did.

Amen.... Bitcoin needs LTC more than LTC needs BTC.  Period.

And thanks to asics, BTC's need for help from LTC has just quadrupled.  There is zero reason for LTC to become BTC's bitch now.   It's bitcoiners that need ltc help not the other way around.  And unless it's mutual. I see no reason to help them as they've kept us down from the beginning.

Bitcoiners in general need to wake up.

So how does keeping Litecoin one release behind Bitcoin make Bitcoin need Litecoin more then Litecoin need Bitcoin?

[bitcoiners]

I just don't think Litecoin needs this as much as you are implying.

Sure.  Litecoin doesn't need anything per se.  But surely the Litecoin community values being valued, and there's no reason to assume that there wouldn't be an interest in being valued more.

It will be valued when it goes to Gox. This has already been confirmed...  Op's head stays in sand again.

CoinHoarder is right,  This doesn't help Litecoin as much as OP is implying.  He's trying to reverse the argument when it's BTC that needs LTC help more than LTC needs BTC help.

OP needs to admit that or move on.

[CoinHoarder]

Litecoin to me is useful and valuable to me in a lot of ways.

1. Diversification of one's crypto coin portfolio. You already mentioned this, so I won't elaborate too much, but someone such as myself that really likes Bitcoin can use other crypto currencies to diversify their crypto portfolio (this valuable trait is not specific to Litecoin.) Age old investing ideology comes into play here and this is just smart investing. Only investing in Bitcoin is like going all in on Google stock.

2. Litecoin being built upon Scrypt makes it stronger than most other ALT currencies, especially the ones that are SHA-256 based. If you look into the problems TRC is facing, you will see that ASICs are hoping on their chain and sending difficulty into the stratosphere. They then go to hash something else, leaving the TRC block chain moving at a snail's pace and transactions taking hours to days to confirm. All SHA-256 based ALT coins (that do not have Scrypt) will suffer from this problem until they are fixed.

3. Litecoin is useful to the crypto currency ecosystem in the way that it's useful to have Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card... or Wells Fargo, Bank Of America, and Chase. Sure, they all do the same thing, but they all do the same thing a little bit differently. Also, if one were to fail, there are others in existance so all commerce would not screech to a halt across the nation. It is good for Bitcoin to have a competing entity that is similar but not the exact same to itself. For the benefit of free market competition, each currency will always be striving to stay ahead or to catch up to one another, at the end of the day mutually improving both currencies by default.

4. Litecoin confirms in 1/4 the time that Bitcoin does. This one is brought up the most often for obvious reasons. I am sometimes impatient and do not want to wait 10 minutes to a hour+ for one or ten confirmations on the Bitcoin block chain. Although in theory this makes Litecoin 1/4 as secure as Bitcoin, I personally have never suffered any problems using Litecoin. Also, Bitcoiners refute this point by stating Bitcoin will soon be faster as soon as the devs increase the block size (I think this is the method they are trying to use), but it is a lot easier said than done. If it was an easy thing to do, then it would have been done long ago. Litecoin is faster right at this moment, which is valuable to me.

5. Because blocks are found 4x faster, difficulty adjusts more quickly.. about every 3.5 days. This is useful because it controls the rate of the minting of Litecoins, and makes sure that they stay provably scarce for some time to come. Again, this is valuable because it stabilizes the network and deters high powered hashers from shooting difficulty into the sky and then leaving the network at a crawling pace for a longer period of time (than if blocks were solved at the same pace as Bitcoin.) This feature is not all butterflies and fairy tales, it also provides the opportunity to manipulate network speed, but as the network grows this will become less and less of a problem.

6. Then there is the "there's nothing to do with your Litecoins" fallacy. These people just don't do their research, there are plenty of things you can do and buy with Litecoin as of this instant. New merchants and services are popping up everyday, and I think this will continue to happen well into the future.

7. The Litecoin community is growing at an exponential rate. Similar to the growth of Bitcoin, as the community grows then so will Litecoin. Litecoin is already far too big and the people that believe in it are too invested in Litecoin for it to fail at this point. Litecoin can at this point proudly say that they are king of the ALT coins. It can no longer be brushed aside as a scam/pump and dump/whatever, it has real value and people are starting to see that.

8. Like Bitcoin, there was no Litecoin pre mine. There was the genesis block, and 2 blocks to confirm the genesis. This is valuable for obvious reasons... no one wants to support scammers, and for a crypto currency to become highly adopted this is a necessary feature.

9. Not everyone was so lucky to be around when Bitcoin was first started and able to buy them for pennies. The possibility of becoming an "early adopter" is very appealing to new crypto currency users. A ton of "noobs" have recently appeared in the last wave of Bitcoin mania and I've noticed that a lot of them overwhelmingly support and/or already use Litecoins.

10. As Bitcoins become more valuable over time, this will further push the poor and "working class" away from it. Some can no longer afford to buy one Bitcoin even at today's prices. People like to get more for their money, and when buying at today's exchange rate people can get more Litecoins than Bitcoins. If the same services and merchants start accepting Litecoins, then what is the purpose of paying $100+, $200+, or $300+ per bitcoin?

11. Litecoin has the advantage of doing everything after Bitcoin. By sitting and waiting in the shadows for people to bring to light exploits and bugs on Bitcoin, these problems can be fixed before there is much of a problem or before someone exploits it. Bitcoin would obviously be exploited first if there was something to exploit, because of the bigger market cap and it is more valuable for someone to exploit Bitcoin first rather than Litecoin.

12. Litecoin derives its value in the same way that Bitcoin does. It is provably scarce and its value is held up by supply and demand. Bitcoin had proven that this in itself can hold up an economy and even make it thrive. As long as there are new services and merchants accepting Litecoin (as there are), then demand should not go away. And... we all know by now that supply stays constant, thus giving Litecoin value.

13. It's anonymous.  

[romerun]

Litecoin, a Bitcoin slave, begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

[Simran]

This is a terrible idea in my opinion. You're basically using Litecoin to protect Bitcoin(Maybe your business?) from what? ASICs? Double spends? 51% attack? Not only does this make Litecoin a slave to Bitcoin, there's no benefit for Litecoin with this idea.

....
Anticipated benefits:

1. Bitcoin users would have a ready made remedy to a 51% attack that they can switch to:  Bitcoin users can simply add the requirement that if a Bitcoin block header hash makes it into the Litecoin chain, that its proof of work should be given a bonus.  Litecoin community could create and maintain pulls to the Satoshi client that cause it to subscribe to the Litecoin chain and incorporate it as intelligence toward block validation and resolving block chain forks.

Yeah, to protect your coin? What protection does Litecoin get? Nothing! If Bitcoin is so great, it can survive on it's own.

2.  Bitcoin would have an easy way to add an emergency upper bound to block creation, just in case an enormous amount of power suddenly appeared.  By turning on an optional must-appear-in-Litecoin requirement, the Bitcoin community could switch on an upper bound of 1 block per 2.5 minutes if it was deemed necessary.

Oh! So now you want Bitcoin to be like Litecoin because you know it's faster! Yeah... no...

3. Litecoin would be seen as far more important than a wannabe bitcoin knockoff without added value by those who see it that way.

That's probably only you and a few others if you haven't seen the increase in the Litecoin network. It's no Bitcoin knockoff, sorry.

4. Bitcoin's blockchain would be re-democratized to CPU/GPU users without forcing the Bitcoin community to switch to scrypt, they'd have more decentralized influence on bitcoin than those with the means to buy/make ASICs

Are you scared of ASICs?

5. The legitimacy of Litecoins would increase greatly - people would see the value of Litecoins in their role of protecting Bitcoin, and would potentially vote for the longevity of Litecoin by offering to accept LTC for goods and services, thereby increasing their value.

Protecting Bitcoin? Yeah, and it's slave. There's plenty of services already accepting LTC. This "benefit" in non-beneficial.

6. I'd start making Casascius Litecoins if you guys did this and did it well.

We're not your slaves either or people that take bribes for "Physical" coins.

I don't understand why others are getting very technical about this idea, when you need to realize that this idea is simple to make Litecoin make Bitcoin even bigger. Cascius, are you afraid that Bitcoins are going to shit and you have a whole inventory you're hoping to get rich off of? If I were you, I'd sell them those coins immediately. This is like making Litecoin a shitty XRP for Bitcoin once again. These are 2 independent chains, so let's leave it at that.