What Litecoin means for Bitcoin (and crypto in general) once it's on Mt.Gox

[Technomage]

I've been following some of the silly discussions in this thread and I'd like to weigh in on some things.

First of all, as far as actual usage, all alternative cryptocurrencies, including Ripple, are, as of right now, absolutely useless compared to Bitcoin. Once we understand that, we can continue the analysis on a fair basis.

Claiming that the altcoins have a significant diluting effect on Bitcoin, is a statement with no actual facts backing it. Thus far all of the other cryptocurrencies have managed to get a very small market cap compared to Bitcoin. Here I don't even address the possibility that most likely altcoins will bring in more people to the cryptocurrency scene, which will actually increase the whole cryptomoney market cap.

Bitcoin market cap = ~1.1 billion USD
Litecoin market cap = ~50 million USD
Ripple market cap = ~17 million USD (1.2 billion XRP distributed so far based on founder statement, 7000 equals 1 bitcoin, 1 bitcoin is $100)
Other altcoins = ~50 million total?

One can disagree with the way I calculate the XRP market cap, but I can assure you that's the only sane way of doing it.

So, now that we know that the altcoins are basically useless at this time, and their total market cap is very small compared to Bitcoin, we can clearly see that they have no significant "diluting" effect on Bitcoin. It's almost the same as saying that Bitcoin is diluting the Euro. Which is obviously ridiculous. They do dilute Bitcoin more than Bitcoin dilutes the Euro, but anyway. You get the point.

What are altcoins good for? They are good for experimenting with stuff that Bitcoin simply can't. Potentially exciting cryptocurrency innovations can come from there. They can also provide some additional mixing capabilities to the cryptomarket, thus allowing more privacy.

One can argue that some innovations already exist. Faster block time (in my opinion an insignificant issue), different algorithm for proof of work (don't agree on scrypt superiority at all, but I do see it as a good backup), different model entirely (proof of stake included) etc.

Ripple is the most innovative of them all, it's very different. Then again Ripple has significant issues as well. It's way more centralized and it's also way more closed. At the moment at least. I'm at this time very skeptical of Ripple, but the core idea behind it is more innovative than the other altcoins.

Finally, I wouldn't really worry about altcoins. They can dilute Bitcoin a bit, and they are mostly useless, but they can also bring in new people and create more diversity for the cryptocurrency economy. That can't be bad. The market will make sure the useless ones die eventually. Remember that Bitcoin has a huge lead in brand name, publicity and network effect. All the others are way, way behind, and regardless of the innovations they bring, they will have a tough time catching up.

Even though in some ways the "Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver" analogy is bad, in some ways it holds true. Litecoin will most likely remain a significantly cheaper cryptocurrency. Not relative to the monetary base, but in actual market cap.

I'm surprised if Litecoin ever manages to sustain a market cap that is over 10% of Bitcoin market cap. Right now it's at 4%, which I think is actually a bit high. Litecoin has perhaps 1% of the usage Bitcoin has, so it's a bit overvalued. It's very speculative though, so who knows.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

I've been following some of the silly discussions in this thread and I'd like to weigh in on some things.

First of all, as far as actual usage, all alternative cryptocurrencies, including Ripple, are, as of right now, absolutely useless compared to Bitcoin. Once we understand that, we can continue the analysis on a fair basis.

Claiming that the altcoins have a significant diluting effect on Bitcoin, is a statement with no actual facts backing it. Thus far all of the other cryptocurrencies have managed to get a very small market cap compared to Bitcoin. Here I don't even address the possibility that most likely altcoins will bring in more people to the cryptocurrency scene, which will actually increase the whole cryptomoney market cap.

Bitcoin market cap = ~1.1 billion USD
Litecoin market cap = ~50 million USD
Ripple market cap = ~17 million USD (1.2 billion XRP distributed so far based on founder statement, 7000 equals 1 bitcoin, 1 bitcoin is $100)
Other altcoins = ~50 million total?

One can disagree with the way I calculate the XRP market cap, but I can assure you that's the only sane way of doing it.

So, now that we know that the altcoins are basically useless at this time, and their total market cap is very small compared to Bitcoin, we can clearly see that they have no significant "diluting" effect on Bitcoin. It's almost the same as saying that Bitcoin is diluting the Euro. Which is obviously ridiculous. They do dilute Bitcoin more than Bitcoin dilutes the Euro, but anyway. You get the point.

What are altcoins good for? They are good for experimenting with stuff that Bitcoin simply can't. Potentially exciting cryptocurrency innovations can come from there. They can also provide some additional mixing capabilities to the cryptomarket, thus allowing more privacy.

One can argue that some innovations already exist. Faster block time (in my opinion an insignificant issue), different algorithm for proof of work (don't agree on scrypt superiority at all, but I do see it as a good backup), different model entirely (proof of stake included) etc.

Ripple is the most innovative of them all, it's very different. Then again Ripple has significant issues as well. It's way more centralized and it's also way more closed. At the moment at least. I'm at this time very skeptical of Ripple, but the core idea behind it is more innovative than the other altcoins.

Finally, I wouldn't really worry about altcoins. They can dilute Bitcoin a bit, and they are mostly useless, but they can also bring in new people and create more diversity for the cryptocurrency economy. That can't be bad. The market will make sure the useless ones die eventually. Remember that Bitcoin has a huge lead in brand name, publicity and network effect. All the others are way, way behind, and regardless of the innovations they bring, they will have a tough time catching up.

Even though in some ways the "Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver" analogy is bad, in some ways it holds true. Litecoin will most likely remain a significantly cheaper cryptocurrency. Not relative to the monetary base, but in actual market cap.

I'm surprised if Litecoin ever manages to sustain a market cap that is over 10% of Bitcoin market cap. Right now it's at 4%, which I think is actually a bit high. Litecoin has perhaps 1% of the usage Bitcoin has, so it's a bit overvalued. It's very speculative though, so who knows.

In a nutshell as Litecoin becomes ever more "useful" expect higher prices.

[smoothie]

I just find it funny that people think it is a good thing that gox will be doing litecoin trading. As if they haven't fucked up enough to be stripped of their market share for good.

Only good thing will come of this is more exposure for Litecoin. But anyone trading litecoin on mtgox, beware, more fuck ups are on the way of mt. of kox.

[klee]

I've been following some of the silly discussions in this thread and I'd like to weigh in on some things.

First of all, as far as actual usage, all alternative cryptocurrencies, including Ripple, are, as of right now, absolutely useless compared to Bitcoin. Once we understand that, we can continue the analysis on a fair basis.

Claiming that the altcoins have a significant diluting effect on Bitcoin, is a statement with no actual facts backing it. Thus far all of the other cryptocurrencies have managed to get a very small market cap compared to Bitcoin. Here I don't even address the possibility that most likely altcoins will bring in more people to the cryptocurrency scene, which will actually increase the whole cryptomoney market cap.

Bitcoin market cap = ~1.1 billion USD
Litecoin market cap = ~50 million USD
Ripple market cap = ~17 million USD (1.2 billion XRP distributed so far based on founder statement, 7000 equals 1 bitcoin, 1 bitcoin is $100)
Other altcoins = ~50 million total?

One can disagree with the way I calculate the XRP market cap, but I can assure you that's the only sane way of doing it.

So, now that we know that the altcoins are basically useless at this time, and their total market cap is very small compared to Bitcoin, we can clearly see that they have no significant "diluting" effect on Bitcoin. It's almost the same as saying that Bitcoin is diluting the Euro. Which is obviously ridiculous. They do dilute Bitcoin more than Bitcoin dilutes the Euro, but anyway. You get the point.

What are altcoins good for? They are good for experimenting with stuff that Bitcoin simply can't. Potentially exciting cryptocurrency innovations can come from there. They can also provide some additional mixing capabilities to the cryptomarket, thus allowing more privacy.

One can argue that some innovations already exist. Faster block time (in my opinion an insignificant issue), different algorithm for proof of work (don't agree on scrypt superiority at all, but I do see it as a good backup), different model entirely (proof of stake included) etc.

Ripple is the most innovative of them all, it's very different. Then again Ripple has significant issues as well. It's way more centralized and it's also way more closed. At the moment at least. I'm at this time very skeptical of Ripple, but the core idea behind it is more innovative than the other altcoins.

Finally, I wouldn't really worry about altcoins. They can dilute Bitcoin a bit, and they are mostly useless, but they can also bring in new people and create more diversity for the cryptocurrency economy. That can't be bad. The market will make sure the useless ones die eventually. Remember that Bitcoin has a huge lead in brand name, publicity and network effect. All the others are way, way behind, and regardless of the innovations they bring, they will have a tough time catching up.

Even though in some ways the "Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver" analogy is bad, in some ways it holds true. Litecoin will most likely remain a significantly cheaper cryptocurrency. Not relative to the monetary base, but in actual market cap.

I'm surprised if Litecoin ever manages to sustain a market cap that is over 10% of Bitcoin market cap. Right now it's at 4%, which I think is actually a bit high. Litecoin has perhaps 1% of the usage Bitcoin has, so it's a bit overvalued. It's very speculative though, so who knows.

You said all I would like to say!

[Vivisector999]

Ok lets say you are right then why do newbies and crypto beginners like the idea of owning some LTC then ?

Except for very few people, cryptocoins are nothing more but yet another "(Eventualy) Make Money Online" deal.

I agree that Bitcoin users are infact very "get rich quick" in their thinking.  And the big reason they are worried about alt's, incase one really takes off and effects their money making venture.  Which is one of the reasons I started mixing it up a bit.  Alot of the alt crypto's are more for the ideas of innovation and having fun than worrying about trying to make a quick buck.  Heck the alt I started mining yesterday "Bottlecaps" is based on Fallout 3 currency.  I like some of the things they are trying with this new coin.  

PoW Scrypt with PoS has 1.5% per annum
Block Time: 60 seconds
4hr Difficulty target time
Reward: 10 coins per block until the end
Coin cap: 47433600 (9 years)
Block confirmations: 5

But in the end, I doubt it will net me any money.  But it's all for fun, which is 1 thing the Bitcoin market seems to have forgotten about.

Bitcoin users should actually embrace the altcoins.  Since they are a big testing ground Bitcoin can't take chances on.  Who knows maybe one day some Alt-coin code will help innovate Bitcoin to make it more useful for day to day transactions (Like buying a coffee at a Starbucks), which would help Bitcoin become more easily adaptable as a World currency everyone seems to want it to become. 

All this fear and hatred from the Bitcoin users seems to be kind of like a Major league sports team knocking the kids playing in the little league games, because they aren't as good as them, and telling their parents that they are idiots for wasting their time watching them play.   

[LiteCoinGuy]

Gox has made it official that they will be adding Litecoin support once the new trading engine has been rolled out.

That is not true. What they said is this:

"As risky as it is to invoke the name of Litecoin (LTC???), we must apologize for not keeping everyone up to date. The fact is that the current
situation means a continued delay, but for good reasons. We’re looking at July right now, though that depends on a few things. Mainly, we
want to do things correctly from the beginning."

I interpret them as just being cautious about promising a specific day. I don't think with statements like this they don't intend to follow through.

+1

of course they will add it when the time is ready and its a good thing to do this! of couse we dont need 1000 other alt coins that are just more but at least a handfull of good ones: like the silver:  LITECOIN

[Seth Otterstad]

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum.  Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

[BitcoinAshley]

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum.  Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

-1.
The post you responded to completely missed the point regarding arbitrage, which is that now instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp, one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp. So we can affect not only the LTC/BTC but the USD/BTC since other exchanges have LTC/USD and LTC/BTC. Both you and meanig need to go learn what "arbitrage" means

But, I lol'd that you overlooked that and +1'd it anyways 

What people against Litecoin (or Mt.Gox adding it) I think don't realize is it's probably inevitable already Litecoin will see widespread adoption.

No, it won't happen. You might realise the reasons why but only if you sell your LTC and give yourself some time to evaluate situation in cryptocoin
and real worlds. For as long as you are holding LTC you will stay LTC biased. It is eventual profit of some sort that is blinding you from realising the
truth there. You might go as far as writting a tome of books about why LTC will be successful but it will contain nothing but crap with very little or
no connections with reality.

One can never realise the truth if he or she is holding onto something because that which he or she is holding onto distorts perception of reality.

HAHA, WHAT? Did you seriously just make the most n00b mistake of all?
1) Go sell ALL your bitcoins. Every last one.
2) THEN come back here and preach to us about how you can't talk about [LTC doom and BTC destiny] while simultaneously holding the coin.
Let me look through your post history... yes, you've talked quite a bit about bitcoins... shall I now go troll every single one of your posts, replying with "sorry, your opinion about bitcoins is automatically invalid since you hold bitcoins!"
Logic fallacy is fallacious. Fail troll is fail. Nice try dude 

[amincd]

MtGox is the biggest exchange and I think they could play a big role in whether cryptocoins remain limited to 21 million or if their circulated supply continues to increase with the adoption of very similar blockchains that have their own coins.

Since MtGox is dependent on Bitcoin's success, it could be in their best interest to give up on the small amount of business they could get from supporting Bitcoin-altchains, in exchange for boosting Bitcoin.

Ethically, I think it's fine to ask an exchange to support Bitcoin exclusively, because providing exchange services to additional blockchains requires giving them precious screen space on the exchange site.

Giving screen space on MtGox to litecoin reduces Bitcoin's exposure to give it to a blockchain that is completely unoriginal, in being technically, an almost exact copy of Bitcoin, has very little actual real world use - with much fewer merchants supporting it than Bitcoin - and undermines the whole concept of Bitcoin-based cryptocurrency by discrediting one of its most attractive features: that there will only ever be 21 million coins.

I think all of the requests they get from litecoin miners has encouraged them to come to the decision to support litecoin though. In every Facebook post they make about their future plans, you see a number of people commenting, asking them to support litecoin, and each comment getting a lot of likes.

The people who want litecoin to do well are individually more motivated than the much larger number of people who don't want Bitcoin to be diluted by altchains, so are more likely to make publicly visible statements.

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum.  Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

-1.
The post you responded to completely missed the point regarding arbitrage, which is that now instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp, one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp.

Any difference in the price of BTC between exchanges is likely to apply to the price of BTC-alts as well, since price differentials are caused by factors that will affect all cryptocurrencies equally, making it unlikely that they would ever be useful for taking advantage of BTC arbitrage opportunities.

No, it won't happen. You might realise the reasons why but only if you sell your LTC and give yourself some time to evaluate situation in cryptocoin
and real worlds. For as long as you are holding LTC you will stay LTC biased. It is eventual profit of some sort that is blinding you from realising the
truth there. You might go as far as writting a tome of books about why LTC will be successful but it will contain nothing but crap with very little or
no connections with reality.

One can never realise the truth if he or she is holding onto something because that which he or she is holding onto distorts perception of reality.

HAHA, WHAT? Did you seriously just make the most n00b mistake of all?
1) Go sell ALL your bitcoins. Every last one.
2) THEN come back here and preach to us about how you can't talk about [LTC doom and BTC destiny] while simultaneously holding the coin.

Actually, the people who own BTC have no reason to be biased against BTC-alts if profit is their motive. If they really wanted to only profit, and had any reason to think BTC-alts had a future, they could easily trade their BTC for a BTC-alt, then join the hypers in claiming there's space for BTC 2, 3, 4 and 5.

They could then enjoy all of the profit that comes with coins they bought at 0.001 BTC each going to 0.01 BTC. Not investing in BTC-alts is missing out on an opportunity to make very big short term profits, whereas investing in them is not.

[meanig]

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum.  Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

-1.
The post you responded to completely missed the point regarding arbitrage, which is that now instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp, one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp. So we can affect not only the LTC/BTC but the USD/BTC since other exchanges have LTC/USD and LTC/BTC. Both you and meanig need to go learn what "arbitrage" means

But, I lol'd that you overlooked that and +1'd it anyways  

Ok, let me try to understand what you're proposing.

instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp

So lets say I have $100 on Gox and I want to transfer that to Bitstamp because bitcoins are cheaper there. I'll then send those bitcoins back to Gox and sell them at the higher Gox price giving me more than $100 at the end.

one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp.

I sell the $100 on Gox for litecoins and then send the litecoins to Bitstamp. Then exchange the litecoins for  

Please explain how to finish the arbitrage trade keeping in mind that the LTC/BTC rate will be almost identical between Gox and Bitstamp (much like it is between BTC-e and Vircurex which already do LTC/BTC trading)

[dandannn]

I can send you some LTC if you want post up your address 

Yes please    x4lqb9gED2AVqJfescaf   

[tycho]

The addition of Litecoin or any other number of altcoins to the exchanges won't make any difference to combating arbitrage. That's because the arbitrage arises from friction caused by moving fiat around and not bitcoins.

For instance you can buy a bitcoin on Bitstamp for $101 and sell it on Gox $110 at the moment. A perfect arbitrage opportunity you might think but withdrawing USD from Gox is difficult and that's the reason behind the price gap. Adding altcoins into the mix won't change that.

+1

OP is just trying to raise litecoin visibility in the main forum.  Move this thread to the garbage section where it belongs.

-1.
The post you responded to completely missed the point regarding arbitrage, which is that now instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp, one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp. So we can affect not only the LTC/BTC but the USD/BTC since other exchanges have LTC/USD and LTC/BTC. Both you and meanig need to go learn what "arbitrage" means

But, I lol'd that you overlooked that and +1'd it anyways  

Ok, let me try to understand what you're proposing.

instead of waiting a really long time to transfer USD from Gox to Bitstamp

So lets say I have $100 on Gox and I want to transfer that to Bitstamp because bitcoins are cheaper there. I'll then send those bitcoins back to Gox and sell them at the higher Gox price giving me more than $100 at the end.

one can simply transfer LTC to bitstamp.

I sell the $100 on Gox for litecoins and then send the litecoins to Bitstamp. Then exchange the litecoins for  

Please explain how to finish the arbitrage trade keeping in mind that the LTC/BTC rate will be almost identical between Gox and Bitstamp (much like it is between BTC-e and Vircurex which already do LTC/BTC trading)

This post and your original post show a fundamental misunderstanding of the way economies and arbitrage work. Arbitrage is not a bad thing and is not something that should be combated; arbitrage is healthy in a functioning economy. LTC on Mt. Gox enables easier arbitrage because extracting LTC from Mt. Gox will be considerably faster than extracting USD, and subject to much smaller fees. There are lots of explanations about how arbitrage works. You should find such an explanation and read it. Once you really understand it, it will be obvious why LTC on Mt. Gox will make arbitrage easier (assuming it is quicker and cheaper to move LTC around than USD, which is a fairly safe assumption), and thus the cryptocurrency economy healthier.

As for whether or not LTC or some other alt fills this role, I have no opinion (well, I have one, but it's not really important to the idea of arbitrage).

[amincd]

^ He never argued that arbitrage is unhealthy. I think you misunderstood his post. He's saying that having multiple BTC-based blockchains doesn't better enable one to take advantage of fiat-BTC arbitrage opportunities.

[klee]

Ended up to a very boring thread IMO...

[tycho]

^ He never argued that arbitrage is unhealthy. I think you misunderstood his post. He's saying that having multiple BTC-based blockchains doesn't better enable one to take advantage of fiat-BTC arbitrage opportunities.

Ah, his use of the word "combated" leads me to believe otherwise. Seems you're right about the fiat-BTC arbitrage, though. In any case, the BTC/USD rates of e.g. btc-e and vicurex are typically a lot closer than btc-e and mt. gox, presumably because there is alt-chain enabled arbitrage, so hopefully it's a non issue.

[amincd]

^ He never argued that arbitrage is unhealthy. I think you misunderstood his post. He's saying that having multiple BTC-based blockchains doesn't better enable one to take advantage of fiat-BTC arbitrage opportunities.

Ah, his use of the word "combated" leads me to believe otherwise. Seems you're right about the fiat-BTC arbitrage, though. In any case, the BTC/USD rates of e.g. btc-e and vicurex are typically a lot closer than btc-e and mt. gox, presumably because there is alt-chain enabled arbitrage, so hopefully it's a non issue.

The rates are closer presumably because the friction of getting fiat into and out of btc-e is closer to what can be found in vicurex than MtGox. I don't see any reason why BTC-altchains would enable BTC/USD arbitrage, for the reasons meanig provided.

[meanig]

^ He never argued that arbitrage is unhealthy. I think you misunderstood his post. He's saying that having multiple BTC-based blockchains doesn't better enable one to take advantage of fiat-BTC arbitrage opportunities.

Ah, his use of the word "combated" leads me to believe otherwise. Seems you're right about the fiat-BTC arbitrage, though. In any case, the BTC/USD rates of e.g. btc-e and vicurex are typically a lot closer than btc-e and mt. gox, presumably because there is alt-chain enabled arbitrage, so hopefully it's a non issue.

Using the word combat was sloppy. My opinion on arbitrage is that when it occurs you should try to profit from it until the imbalances which caused it no longer exist. Hence my use of the word combat.

....... Arbitrage is not a bad thing and is not something that should be combated; arbitrage is healthy in a functioning economy. LTC on Mt. Gox enables easier arbitrage because extracting LTC from Mt. Gox will be considerably faster than extracting USD, and subject to much smaller fees. There are lots of explanations about how arbitrage works. You should find such an explanation and read it. Once you really understand it, it will be obvious why LTC on Mt. Gox will make arbitrage easier (assuming it is quicker and cheaper to move LTC around than USD, which is a fairly safe assumption), and thus the cryptocurrency economy healthier.

As for whether or not LTC or some other alt fills this role, I have no opinion (well, I have one, but it's not really important to the idea of arbitrage).

Can you explain to me how you can use litecoins to speed up the arbitrage trade I discussed bearing in mind that all the historical evidence suggests LTC/BTC rates will be almost the same across all exchanges.

[Liquid]

I can send you some LTC if you want post up your address 

Yes please    x4lqb9gED2AVqJfescaf   

That is not a valid address

[stdset]

One can notice, that litecoin supporters usually support bitcoin as well. Most likely they feel, even if they don't realise that: if bitcoin fails, it means that litecoin fails too. But if litecoin fails, that's good for bitcoin. May be this fact alone is enough for bitcoin to eventually win.

[mgio]

The answer is simple:

1) As I said many times before MtGox will never actually implement Litecoin trading! You heard it here first!

2) Litecoin and all other alt coins are going to die. They offer no advantages over bitcoin right now and are purely speculatory. As GPU miners switch to Litecoin mining watch the price plummet as many new people are selling and no one is buying. (Yes, I know the number of LTC created a day is constant, but i believe more people will try to sell the Litecoin they mine, instead of holding).