Litecoin and scrypt

[ColonelCrypto]

Was LTC the first altcoin to use scrypt? If so what was the purpose/advantage of using scrypt over SHA-256? Does it actually bring anything new to the table?

[clip]

scrypt is much harder to implement on FPGA's and ASIC's. So you avoid the situation that you have in bitcoin where the people sitting on asics control pretty much all the hash power.

[Collectrix]

Ditto what Clip said.  And yea, while Scrypt was known and toyed with, LTC was the first mass implementation of it.  You should check out the October 2011 announcement thread for more info.

[malin]

;/