litecoin dead ?

[Flashman]

Oh you want technical analysis..

Well if you look at the chart, there's a funny wiggle there, and a jiggle here, and a bit that looks like a pigeons lower intestine, this implies messaging, as in pigeon post, the messenger of the gods was mercury and the mercury is at 52 degrees here today, if we take that with the greek letter mu showing in the chart here and multiply its numerological index quotient by 52, you get the age of your first grandchild at marriage and coincidentally the value of litecoin on 1/4/2014.

But the short answer is, like anything it will do well because there's still people who have confidence it will do well. Don't matter whether it's litecoin or Apple stocks.

[stdset]

I will never understand why all the bitcoin nuts insist that every other coin is shit.

They don't insist that every other coin is shit. Only certain coins are shit, LTC is one of them. Those coins which brought something new and valuable are not shit. I can name PPC, NMC and, may be, XPM - they are not shit.

[Snail2]

Wanting profit does not make profit.
Basically, you're saying alts are just a way to get more bitcoins. I certainly agree, as no alt has (at least for now) other compelling reasons to own them.
However Litecoin has been gradually losing its position as the altcoin of choice, and I don't think it will stop. If I wanted to get more bitcoins, I'd certainly look elsewhere.

Alts made profit already and I guess the surviving alts will make more profit in the future. As bitcoin mining getting more and more centralized and BTC itself less and less affordable for many, I think alts will attract more and more attention.

Basically yes. Perhaps you can find some idealists who made/supporting an alt for fun, or as a solution for a real or an imagined problem with bitcoin, but these devs/supporters are the minority.

At this moment there are no replacement for Litecoin. Maybe NVC could be the only one but it had a questionable start. The other established alts aren't very popular at all. Maybe NTX or eMunie can be a replacement in the future but there are couple of white patches on the map regarding these coins. Anyway, replacing LTC will take time and I believe people who invested a lot into it don't want to loose all of these investments.

[Netnox]

I will never understand why all the bitcoin nuts insist that every other coin is shit.

They don't insist that every other coin is shit. Only certain coins are shit, LTC is one of them. Those coins which brought something new and valuable are not shit. I can name PPC, NMC and, may be, XPM - they are not shit.

Trust me when some bitcoiners feel threatened by one of these alts they will talk smack, right now the only alt that can take away the spotlight from btc is ltc (after it gets added in major exchanges)

[MAbtc]

This is a good point. It seems sensible to think that the entire GPU-mining economy switching from BTC to LTC would skew the market. I mean, who's gonna buy all those coins?

The number of coins produced per day has nothing to do with the number of people mining.  Difficulty changes ensure that the coin production rate is constant.

This is pretty basic stuff.

Not the number of coins per day. The dynamic of a new class of miners entering with the intention of mining LTC in order to exchange to BTC, creating persistent downward pressure on LTC/BTC rate. Maybe it's just something that sounded right in my head but is way off....

[flound1129]

This is a good point. It seems sensible to think that the entire GPU-mining economy switching from BTC to LTC would skew the market. I mean, who's gonna buy all those coins?

The number of coins produced per day has nothing to do with the number of people mining.  Difficulty changes ensure that the coin production rate is constant.

This is pretty basic stuff.

Not the number of coins per day. The dynamic of a new class of miners entering with the intention of mining LTC in order to exchange to BTC, creating persistent downward pressure on LTC/BTC rate. Maybe it's just something that sounded right in my head but is way off....

It's not a new class of miners.  It's everyone mining LTC, other than a few "true beliebers" who only mine and hold..  Because there is literally *nothing else to do with it* other than trade it for BTC or hold it until some future date when you believe the value will go up.

[mr_random]

The biggest bitcoin exchange in China Btcchina is owned by the brother of Coblee, the Litecoin dev.

Litecoin going on btcchina would be huge

[Vlad2Vlad]

The biggest bitcoin exchange in China Btcchina is owned by the brother of Coblee, the Litecoin dev.

Litecoin going on btcchina would be huge

So the Chinese right now cannot get to the Litecoin market?   So this new exchange listing would open up another, NEW market for Litecoin then and bring in many new investors who before couldn't buy Litecoin?

[Vivisector999]

BTC China is now the largest BTC exchange in the world (according to Wired, which could be wrong).  So if LTC was to make it into that exchange, it would have the possibility of being much larger than the Litecoin on MtGox train.

The easier it is for merchants to exchange their coins (of any type) for fiat, the more likely they will become adopted.  No merchants wants to have to exchange twice to get fiat out, so the more bigger exchanges LTC or any altcoin can get on the better.

Instead of fighting which coin is the best, we should really all be on the same side.  BTC might dwarf LTC in the number of places you can use it, but that is a miniscule amount compared to how many places take fiat compared to BTC.  Because of BTC's major flaws, it will never overtake fiat/interac/credit cards for quick transactions.  No one at a Starbucks, Walmart, or Costco are going to wait 10 minutes for their transaction to be confirmed.  Sure Starbucks might bite the bullet and put their $3 on the line allowing for the customer to leave before it is properly confirmed.  Costco on the other hand with $500 transactions as an almost regular occurrence probably wouldn't.   LTC isn't going to grab that market either, although it is a bit better.  Another problem, the blockchains would collapse under their own weight if they had the volume of transactions that interac or credit cards had on a yearly basis.  We all need to hope for some real innovators to come along and build up an alt coin that actually fixes the problems at hand if we ever want a cryptocurrency to take over, as Vlad expects BTC to when everyone falls for BTC, and the US gov't gets rid of fiat  LMAO.  Wouldn't that be a disaster in the making. 

[Notanon]

So long as the minimum limit on Bitcoin transactions remains, the case for alternatives like Litecoin will remain strong. It might not be much of a problem now, but if the price of Bitcoin skyrockets and it remains in place, then it will not be used much, if at all, for smaller day-to-day transactions, in spite of the Bitcoin Cultists saying it will replace all fiat for such transactions. I have yet to see this be addressed by those who say the days of alts are numbered. If anything, I don't think they have a leg to stand on regarding this scenario.

Given that a new Litecoin stockmarket just launched and another one will soon be as well, both to replace LTC-Global, I'd say the price dropping is just temporary. They might even play a key role in the price of Litecoin going back up by creating a demand for Litecoins to be used to pay dividends, thanks to good old supply-and-demand. I seriously doubt Mt.Gox will be adding Litecoins anytime soon, going by their poor track record, but Crypto-Trade allow for direct purchasing of Litecoins using US Dollars or Euros, so Mt.Gox may not necessarily be needed at all if more people look for or create alternatives such as these. Hell, I'd probably use BTCMarkets to buy Litecoins as I wouldn't have to muck around with converting Australian Dollars into either US Dollars or Euros in the first place.

[Notanon]

"Bitcoin Cultists" was purely tongue-in-cheek, but there are some out there who haven't quite taken the blinkers off or downright stubborn in supporting Bitcoin 100%, all the same.

[Vivisector999]

It's wrong, it's behind both Mt.Gox and Bitstamp.

That transaction speed is bullshit - first of all, you do not understand this is highly varying, and that you can wait much more than the average block time, and that no one is going to wait one minute at a point of sale anyway. Actually, no one even waits ten seconds already.

You also do not understand that the time is there for a reason: shorter confirmation times are less secure.

Just do what the credit card processors (and, oh, Bitpay) already do: confirm right away, and take the risk. Or use trusted wallets.

I think we are on the same page, just looking at it from different angles.  I agree that the shorter confirm times are less secure, and that the time is there for a reason.  I am looking at it more as the problems that would happen if the Vlad agenda ever played itself out (Which I think is HIGHLY unlikely), where a total scrap of fiat occurs in a short period of time, and everyone would be attempting to live their regular lives out using BTC as the defacto currency.  There are thousands of scenarios where people are not going to take the risk and confirm right away, and at the same time people won't be willing to sit around waiting for the transaction to properly confirm.  And yes I have heard cases where BTC took over 30 mins to confirm in some odd cases.   Also if fiat was wiped from existence,   BTC would have mass problems occurring as the blockchain is not made to withstand that many transactions, and for years on end.  

I was just saying no cryptocurrency at the current time is ready to take on that much load, and work for all people without annoyances.  Which is why we need some innovative people to take it where it is today, and somehow get it to where a cryptocurrency could stand a chance of taking over for fiat, if that ever did happen.

As for me, I am not a BTC cultist, or an anti-BTC supporter.  I am just a supporter of Cryptocurrencies in general, and am not in any way affected personally if BTC is on the rise, or LTC, or heck even Nuggets.

[Buffer Overflow]

And yes I have heard cases where BTC took over 30 mins to confirm in some odd cases.

I've previously waited for an hour before a block was found.

[DeathAndTaxes]

It's wrong, it's behind both Mt.Gox and Bitstamp.

That transaction speed is bullshit - first of all, you do not understand this is highly varying, and that you can wait much more than the average block time, and that no one is going to wait one minute at a point of sale anyway. Actually, no one even waits ten seconds already.

You also do not understand that the time is there for a reason: shorter confirmation times are less secure.

Just do what the credit card processors (and, oh, Bitpay) already do: confirm right away, and take the risk. Or use trusted wallets.

I think we are on the same page, just looking at it from different angles.  I agree that the shorter confirm times are less secure, and that the time is there for a reason.  I am looking at it more as the problems that would happen if the Vlad agenda ever played itself out (Which I think is HIGHLY unlikely), where a total scrap of fiat occurs in a short period of time, and everyone would be attempting to live their regular lives out using BTC as the defacto currency.  There are thousands of scenarios where people are not going to take the risk and confirm right away, and at the same time people won't be willing to sit around waiting for the transaction to properly confirm.  And yes I have heard cases where BTC took over 30 mins to confirm in some odd cases.   Also if fiat was wiped from existence,   BTC would have mass problems occurring as the blockchain is not made to withstand that many transactions, and for years on end. 

I was just saying no cryptocurrency at the current time is ready to take on that much load, and work for all people without annoyances.  Which is why we need some innovative people to take it where it is today, and somehow get it to where a cryptocurrency could stand a chance of taking over for fiat, if that ever did happen.

As for me, I am not a BTC cultist, or an anti-BTC supporter.  I am just a supporter of Cryptocurrencies in general, and am not in any way affected personally if BTC is on the rise, or LTC, or heck even Nuggets.

Why do you waste energy worrying about edge case scenarios especially the asinine ones which exist only in Vlad's mind?

Bitcoin growth will be "slow" and steady.  As long as long term adoption is roughly equal to Moore's law the relative requirements CPU, memory, bandwidth, and storage will remain in check.  If over the next decade the rate of tx increase by 32x it will hardly be noticed as the relative cost of storage will be 1/32nd of todays prices on a per byte basis.

[Netnox]

At least inputs.io and Coinbase already provide offchain (micro)transactions. The blockchain is good because it is not debt based, but everyday transactions are better off through those services. Think of it like money under your mattress, except more secure and practical

Mumble all what you want, LTC doesnt give shit about your opinion, don't buy or mine LTC but don't come and bash  it like you are getting paid to do it, meanwhile its going up

[Vivisector999]

Lol, the the human part of me thinks you're right.

The engineer part of me thinks you should plan ahead for anything wacky so you aren't stuck there when Murphy's Law trumps Moore's law, and the totally unexpected happens.

 Oh crap, I think Murphy's law just became Vlad's law, with God numbers and superblocks.

[Buffer Overflow]

And yes I have heard cases where BTC took over 30 mins to confirm in some odd cases.

I've previously waited for an hour before a block was found.

I'm not the one who wrote that (not sure how the quoting ended up here).
But there are many cases of 1 hour blocks, yes.
You'll get the same variance with any blockchain; time between blocks is only an average. This is why waiting for confirmations, however fast they are supposed to be, isn't practical.

Sorry, corrected it now. I was trying to feed a baby in one hand and type on a tiny phone screen in the other.

[stdset]

I will never understand why all the bitcoin nuts insist that every other coin is shit.

They don't insist that every other coin is shit. Only certain coins are shit, LTC is one of them. Those coins which brought something new and valuable are not shit. I can name PPC, NMC and, may be, XPM - they are not shit.

Trust me when some bitcoiners feel threatened by one of these alts they will talk smack, right now the only alt that can take away the spotlight from btc is ltc (after it gets added in major exchanges)

What I wrote is my own judgment. I came to this point of view gradually, while learning bitcoin (and it's clones) internals. In the beginning, in 2011, I was supporting litecoin. Now it's clear for me: litecoin isn't more than a copycat of bitcoin. It is made of greed and envy. Litecoin supporters want to enjoy the same benefits as bitcoin early adopters. But do they deserve it? Note: I'm not a bitcoin early adopter.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Lol, the the human part of me thinks you're right.

The engineer part of me thinks you should plan ahead for anything wacky so you aren't stuck there when Murphy's Law trumps Moore's law, and the totally unexpected happens.

We already have a roughly 100x comfort margin.  It isn't like current adoption is stressing what todays technology can handle (some complaints about the blockchain being too big aside).   Growth probably will exceed Moore's law in the short term but that isn't a problem.  If todays hardware can handle >10 tps on a home computer (residential connection) and more than 100 tps on a cheap hosted server then even short term explosive growth will just eat into the margin.  


I was thinking more on a multi-decade scale and on any timeline pretty much nothing exceeds Moore's law.  As a "makes you think" experiment lets say we are peaking 1 tps today and long term Bitcoin growth will be limited to "only" Moore's law.  That is a doubling of transaction volume every two years which works out to a 32x growth every decade.

2013 - ~1 tps
2023 - ~32 tps
2033 - ~1,000 tps
2043 - ~32,000 tps
3053 - ~1,000,000 tps

To put that into perspective.
PayPal ~= 100 tps (up to 200 tps peak)
VISA ~= 4,000 tps (up to 10,000 tps peak)
All electronic commerce (bank wires, ACH, credit cards, etc) ~= 20,000 tps
All human commerce ?? <300K tps (total guestimate probably significantly less than that)

TL/DR:
Law of large numbers and all that.  The bigger the network gets the slower growth will become.  Unless Bitcoin goes interstellar in the next decade we don't have much to worry about.

[Netnox]

I will never understand why all the bitcoin nuts insist that every other coin is shit.

They don't insist that every other coin is shit. Only certain coins are shit, LTC is one of them. Those coins which brought something new and valuable are not shit. I can name PPC, NMC and, may be, XPM - they are not shit.

Trust me when some bitcoiners feel threatened by one of these alts they will talk smack, right now the only alt that can take away the spotlight from btc is ltc (after it gets added in major exchanges)

What I wrote is my own judgment. I came to this point of view gradually, while learning bitcoin (and it's clones) internals. In the beginning, in 2011, I was supporting litecoin. Now it's clear for me: litecoin isn't more than a copycat of bitcoin. It is made of greed and envy. Litecoin supporters want to enjoy the same benefits as bitcoin early adopters. But do they deserve it? Note: I'm not a bitcoin early adopter.

First of all its not a copycat, second nothing wrong with investing early and making money, dont hate on people who chose the right coin which has the potential to rise. you probably chose the wrong coin to invest.