A warning about Alt-Coins

[atariguy]

how about ltc entering mtgox tomorrow is it true?

This ones been going around for awhile..... source?

Yeah, kind of like BFL's delivery time... 

[nairna53]

I'm interested in mining litecoin while it's still relatively unknown.

No, miners know litecoins very well. So, I think, this is not very profitable to mine litecoins. Nor bitcoins, nor any other well-known altcoins.
If you want to get some profit, choose some very new altcoin, but this altcoin should have a big potential.

[nairna53]

Thus, why are you mining/investing your time into one of these altcoins?

1. Because mining of small altcoins (before they become popular) is profitable
2. Because it is just interesting
3. Because we want to try the new technologies

[atariguy]

Might as well just play the stock market... 

[nairna53]

I don't think any of the available alt-coins have any form of benefit over and above bitcoins really anyway! 

Bitcoin can be mined on ASICs. So, in the future, all bitcoin miners will be on ASICs. And bitcoin will became too centralized. But bitcoin is created for decentralization. So, we really need some coin, which cannot be mined on ASICs. So, litecoin appeared.

[worldlybedouin]

I started mining LTC after I saw that I missed the ASIC boat on BTC.  Unfortunately because ASICs will end up ruling the bitcoin world...and they are incredibly hard to get ones hands on (let alone the cost!), it seems that either I mine alt-coin or I get relegated to playing the investor role.  I actually like the the mining aspect of cryptocurrency.  Looking back on my start with LTC and getting my GPU rig up and running, I was frusted, tired, curious, compelled, happy, sad, etc...you name it I went through it...but looking back it was a wonderfully satisfying experience which I'd happily repeat.  That being said, I did turn my miner on with BTC first...however, watching a few fractional BTC trickle in made me feel like all that blood sweat and tears wasn't as worthwhile. Psychologically there's something about waking up every morning and seeing a real noticeable difference in the amount of coins I have.  I love seeing 3-4LTC each morning vs the .00X BTC.  The rig is made up of disposible income, so if it doesn't ever meet a break-even point that's ok.  I've learned so much about BTC, LTC, and cryptocurrency in general that it's worth it.  Perhaps when ASICs are out without the 6-12month "gamble" period I might consider building a rig for BTC...until then I'll collect my few LTC, buy some random odds and ends using them...and just enjoy the experience.

[krudkeeper]

I would love to see Terracoin and Devcoin gain traction, but am sticking with Bitcoin now as far as investing goes. I sell ad space on my site for Bitcoin, but would always be willing to accept other cryptos.

[ruzzosplinter]

First I have heard of alt coins. I agree that btc was doubtful from the beginning but look at it now.

[Shadey]

I love alt-coins

[Kiwi7]

Why there are so many threads with Alt-Coin giveaways?

[GenesisSources]

Currently there are dozens of alternative coins. Some are just "copy&paste" coins, some do have a slight modification of the algorithm or some small extra features. However, in my opinion neither of these coins has a real advantage over bitcoin. Thus, why are you mining/investing your time into one of these altcoins?

Because GPU miners in particular can make a lot more money mining scrypt based altcoins than mining bitcoin. Litecoin is regularly in the realm of 100-150% profitability according to various altcoin comparison chart / stats sites. There are several other coins lately that have exceeded 200% profitability and stayed up there for a few days at time, far better than BTC even when they eventually pop in some cases.

So the short answer to your question is: "to make more money".

ASIC investment remains high risk, many won't ever see ROI. Many miners don't want to get rid of their GPUs just yet for various reasons.

If your idea of mining is squeezing every bit of coin out of your GPU hardware then altcoins are definitely for you. On the other hand if your idea of mining is to setup an ASIC or mine BTC shares with a GPU and check on it once a week or less then you have probably wasted your time reading this thread because altcoins are not for you.

Whether its worthwhile mining the other SHA-256 coins with an ASIC is another matter entirely that I don't think I'll go into right now...

Trillium, this is the first post I have seen in the newb forum area that was worth reading; but I suppose that means I did my homework before investing time in mining Litecoin. I don't really have enough GPU-power to do much good, but I'm not paying anything for power where I currently live. My best miner is a (uggh, I know) Asus GTX 550Ti, which I have been using Cudaminer with to get ~75kh/s (which btw is a lot better than what is shown with , and stability isn't great. Since I'm not paying for power, I'm shopping for a 7970 (maybe up to 4 of them...) and would sure like to get some input as to which 7970s people are happiest & fastest mining with.

My other concern should be one that all newbs want answered: What are the ins & outs of converting coin to cold, hard $$$ in your preferred form (as in depending where you live)? How is the final step of transferring funds into an account handled typically?

GenesisSources

[Trillium]

Currently there are dozens of alternative coins. Some are just "copy&paste" coins, some do have a slight modification of the algorithm or some small extra features. However, in my opinion neither of these coins has a real advantage over bitcoin. Thus, why are you mining/investing your time into one of these altcoins?

Because GPU miners in particular can make a lot more money mining scrypt based altcoins than mining bitcoin. Litecoin is regularly in the realm of 100-150% profitability according to various altcoin comparison chart / stats sites. There are several other coins lately that have exceeded 200% profitability and stayed up there for a few days at time, far better than BTC even when they eventually pop in some cases.

So the short answer to your question is: "to make more money".

ASIC investment remains high risk, many won't ever see ROI. Many miners don't want to get rid of their GPUs just yet for various reasons.

If your idea of mining is squeezing every bit of coin out of your GPU hardware then altcoins are definitely for you. On the other hand if your idea of mining is to setup an ASIC or mine BTC shares with a GPU and check on it once a week or less then you have probably wasted your time reading this thread because altcoins are not for you.

Whether its worthwhile mining the other SHA-256 coins with an ASIC is another matter entirely that I don't think I'll go into right now...

Trillium, this is the first post I have seen in the newb forum area that was worth reading; but I suppose that means I did my homework before investing time in mining Litecoin. I don't really have enough GPU-power to do much good, but I'm not paying anything for power where I currently live. My best miner is a (uggh, I know) Asus GTX 550Ti, which I have been using Cudaminer with to get ~75kh/s (which btw is a lot better than what is shown with , and stability isn't great. Since I'm not paying for power, I'm shopping for a 7970 (maybe up to 4 of them...) and would sure like to get some input as to which 7970s people are happiest & fastest mining with.

My other concern should be one that all newbs want answered: What are the ins & outs of converting coin to cold, hard $$$ in your preferred form (as in depending where you live)? How is the final step of transferring funds into an account handled typically?

GenesisSources

I can't advise re 7970 but I see a lot of people seem to like the 7950 vapor-x cards so maybe they are the way to go? Not sure.

I live in Australia so the BTC->$AUD services are going to be completely different.

I personally have previously used services that convert BTC to Paypal, sometimes with very low fees, because I buy a LOT of stuff on ebay.

However, those services have since discontinued, in the future I might use a service called Coinjar, I have used their Cash->BTC service (coinjar filler) with success already and I'm happy with them so far.

I would be really happy if there was a new service available in Australia where I can send someone BTC and they'll pay money using BPay, which is like a electronic bill payment system that just utilises a reference number. The previous service I used to do this with ceased. If anyone knows of a service that still does this... let me know. (I suppose I could use this forum to find people willing to send money towards the reference number. But there are trust issues with that, it could go wrong, a tested service provided by a company or group would be better.)

[bitcom]

Altcoins make the gpu mining profitable, as long as there is an exchange where you can trade your altcoins for btc. If scrypt fpga or asic will be available then the demand for altcoins will be much less.

[jackjack]

Altcoins make the gpu mining profitable, as long as there is an exchange where you can trade your altcoins for btc. If scrypt fpga or asic will be available then the demand for altcoins will be much less.

Wrong because there will still be GPU miners

[GAS Coin]

Coming soon

[sidhujag]

looks like devcoin is now the one to watch... 150btc buy wall set up for a pump

[BTCat]

   
Cryptogenic Bullion's (CGB) are great. Only 1 million coins to be mined, it just got on Cryptsy, price may jump cause of it's rarity.

[joeaxe]

Hopefully there will be some list compiled showing which coins are proven to do bad. I would rather not see some general sentence saying "beware of all alts".
One thing I do not like is a lot of coins coming out with massive quantities. It does nothing to help the perceived value of the coin.

JoeAxe
knownwo.com

[farmarjack]

Any coíin is only as good as the comunity is going to suport it.
Take an example if today the possibylity to mine btc will end ppl will try to find an other alternation.
Despite the original idea of bitcoin as a digital curency , the bitcoin is only as strong as there is the possibility to make profit with the mining.
U can see that because of the perofitability of mining btc there r still growing manbufacturers willing to offer new more powerfull mining equipment.
But when the difficulty of mining reaches the top possible where u dont get any proffit of it. The btc will probably die.
And all miners an manufacturers will turn their attention on next most popular coin type.

[blackswan]

There are a bunch of alt coins being made every day.  Some are designed to be pump and dump scams, others actually have some value (either in their design, or scientific purpose).

It's hard to predict which ones will be of value in the future as all cyptocurrencies are relatively new.  But I do believe they serve an important part in the market.