why mess around with alt coins, litecoin

[Paul Troon]

I mentioned in my first post that I would follow up on the newbie boards with my experience using Litecoin.  I would like to hear from other newbies if they have installed an alt coin system, why they did it and what their experience was.

My primary interest in Litecoin comes from the fact that I don't have the time or money to compete in a GPU arms race.   I'd like to be able to mine on the high end CPU system I already have with out feeling it's a complete waste of time.

I also believe that tweaking the main Bitcoin branch in a couple of interesting ways will provide a good experiment of those new ideas.  In addition to the proof of work change to favor CPUs, the other major change decreases the transaction time.   From what I can tell, there are no major theoretical reasons these changes should not improve on the Bitcoin system; only real world testing can establish if there are unforeseen problems.

If either or both of these changes prove to be useful and not harmful, then I would expect they would at some point find their way into the main Bitcoin branch.  Especially if a consensus emerges that the problems they solve are hampering Bitcoins.  That is why I like that Litecoins were branched from the main Bitcoin code base.  I also like that the creators of Litecoin have not pre-mined and have given a good amount of publicity to their launch.  Both of these facts make me believe that they are in it for the good of the system and not as a get-rich-quick scam.

So what am I missing?  is there some reason I should ignore all alt coins? is Litecoin in particular a waste of my time to install and run?

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[Paul Troon]

Right now I see at most 5 or 6 other nodes and basically do nothing but mine using the built in miner.    With out some sort of test plan and customized test drivers to exercise the system it seems like not much real world testing takes place.     It seems like Bitcoin spent more time in test mode before rolling out. 

How have other alt coins been brought down?  Is there anyway to simulate on the testnet these attacks or failures?  I'm a newbie, I have more questions than answers.  Perhaps someone can point me to the appropriate threads.  Thanks.

[hmongotaku]

are you gonna cripple the GPU miners? then it's a waste of time. Might as well start a new code that deals with lettters instead of hashes add a few C++ coding to slow the GPUs down i bet? Why won't you just pick up Crosbycoins! they got the graphics made & thread here already.

[Shawshank]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

[deslok]

Any chain prefering a single piece of hardware will just cause miners to purchase it instead, better cpu mining? stock up on dual and quad socket server boards, better gpu mining? get some radeons. It's not leveling any playing field the same people that could afford a pile of graphcis cards can afford a pile of xeons or opterons (depending on which arcitecture deals with it better)

[ripper234]

My opinion is that LiteCoin is the first serious attempt at an Alt currency.
It may be a complete failure, but it might just be a cool way for Bitcoin newbies to get in on the action, gradually attracting more people in.

Since newcomers can't mine Bitcoin today with serious effort / hardware, they might be attracted to LiteCoin. LiteCoin will probablly never reach "Top Crypto-Currency" status, but it may have a viable market, even if years to come. If it only retains 1% of Bitcoin market size, and Bitcoin grows as much as I think it will, then LiteCoin might even be a better investment than Bitcoin right now. Of course, it might utterly and completely fail - if you invest X amount of money in BTC, I wouldn't put more than 0.01-0.1X in LTC ... but it's an interesting diversification.

Also, it's cool - you can actually mine money, regardless of its worth! For me it's worth it just to see the miner says "you found proof of work", and seeing the 50 LTC transaction in my wallet (testnet so far of course).

http://ripper234.com/p/be-an-early-adopter-now-is-litecoin-the-new-fair-bitcoin/

[johnj]

I mentioned in my first post that I would follow up on the newbie boards with my experience using Litecoin.  I would like to hear from other newbies if they have installed an alt coin system, why they did it and what their experience was.

My primary interest in Litecoin comes from the fact that I don't have the time or money to compete in a GPU arms race.   I'd like to be able to mine on the high end CPU system I already have with out feeling it's a complete waste of time.

I also believe that tweaking the main Bitcoin branch in a couple of interesting ways will provide a good experiment of those new ideas.  In addition to the proof of work change to favor CPUs, the other major change decreases the transaction time.   From what I can tell, there are no major theoretical reasons these changes should not improve on the Bitcoin system; only real world testing can establish if there are unforeseen problems.

If either or both of these changes prove to be useful and not harmful, then I would expect they would at some point find their way into the main Bitcoin branch.  Especially if a consensus emerges that the problems they solve are hampering Bitcoins.  That is why I like that Litecoins were branched from the main Bitcoin code base.  I also like that the creators of Litecoin have not pre-mined and have given a good amount of publicity to their launch.  Both of these facts make me believe that they are in it for the good of the system and not as a get-rich-quick scam.

So what am I missing?  is there some reason I should ignore all alt coins? is Litecoin in particular a waste of my time to install and run?

Depends on what you're looking for.  I for one mine just about every alt-chain that releases, as the massive speculation + small difficulty = massive gains.  I earned 54x more btc mining TBX at launch (comparing time frames) - and I sold low. I still kinda kick myself for selling low, but them I'm reminded that a 54x gain is still pretty dang good.

Plus it's always a good idea to keep your ear to the ground with alt-chains: if you dismiss them all, you may indeed miss out on 'the next big thing'. Myspace, Napster, etc - all relative 'pioneers', and all have been superceded.  It takes a decent amount of common sense to sift through the garbage, and never over-commit to anything until you have good reason.  Bitcoin isn't the reigning king 'just because'.

[Yahkin]

If BTC development stagnates, then it is likely one of these alt currencies will take over.

Considering I really haven't seen much innovation in recent months, I'm concerned it may already be in the works.

[Paul Troon]

So far, my newbie experience with Litecoin has been good.  My reason for getting involved was primarily that I could do it with the hardware I had - both because it's a new chain and because I don't have a high end graphics card (or the will to buy any new hardware).

A key tip for other newbie's out there - update your Litecoin (or any alt coin) client often, in the early rounds.  New clients are created when a chain starts to keep attackers from forking the build before the difficulty rises too high.  This is more important than having the most highly tuned mining daemon.  I mined all of my coins so far with only the windows client, no daemon.

To the degree a single rig (as part of a pool) has a chance to get some non-trivial LTC over time, with out needing to invest in anything new, then I think Litecoin has a non-trivial advantage over Bitcoin. 

There will always be the overclocker crowd who enjoys investing in new hardware and those guys are important to the security and survival of the chain.  But if average users also get some benefit to mining with their unused desktop CPU cycles then that should add to the depth and diversification to the population of systems mining.   Dedicated miners are fickle and will optimize, but normal users will be loyal and provide a base of hashes.  Or at least that is my thinking - please correct my logic, I haven't been studying this for too long.

My example is that I have a 6-core 56xx Xeon sitting on my desk at work and free power.  Why not dedicate 5 cores to mining?  I can set it up in a few minutes and mine 24x7 with out thinking about it.  Hopefully enough other fall into this category and will turn their unused cycles to supporting Litecoin (or other cpu friendly alt coins).

[johnj]

There will always be the overclocker crowd who enjoys investing in new hardware and those guys are important to the security and survival of the chain.  But if average users also get some benefit to mining with their unused desktop CPU cycles then that should add to the depth and diversification to the population of systems mining.   Dedicated miners are fickle and will optimize, but normal users will be loyal and provide a base of hashes.  Or at least that is my thinking - please correct my logic, I haven't been studying this for too long.

With *every* new thing, as soon as it becomes profitable to invest in specialized hardware, people will. At that point average users will be pushed out.

As long as a *coin is centered around computing power, the big players are gonna push the smaller players to the side.

[Paul Troon]

There will always be the overclocker crowd who enjoys investing in new hardware and those guys are important to the security and survival of the chain.  But if average users also get some benefit to mining with their unused desktop CPU cycles then that should add to the depth and diversification to the population of systems mining.   Dedicated miners are fickle and will optimize, but normal users will be loyal and provide a base of hashes.  Or at least that is my thinking - please correct my logic, I haven't been studying this for too long.

With *every* new thing, as soon as it becomes profitable to invest in specialized hardware, people will. At that point average users will be pushed out.

As long as a *coin is centered around computing power, the big players are gonna push the smaller players to the side.

But what is the difference in computational power in a GPU vs. CPU friendly POW system?  A top Bitcoin miner might churn out 30GH/s, a single GPU miner maybe 250MH/s and a typical CPU only miner maybe 10MH/s.  So top is mining at 120x the single GPU miner and 3000x a CPU miner.

The unknown question is whether top CPU miners will be more or less than the ratio of top GPU miner to single GPU miners (120x).  If equal or less than 120x, that means an average user, who has not gone out of their way to buy a specific (ie. AMD) GPU can participate and not feel it's a waste of time.  If you're mining BTC with out a GPU, then the difference of 3000x is daunting, even with pooled mining.  I also suspect top CPU clusters will turn out to be the same guys with GPU clusters using their CPUs to mine LTC while their GPUs mine BTC.  That is significant because the multiple will thus be on the same order, or around 120x, and for a while considerably less because these clusters will not be optimized for LTC.

I will continue to solo mine and just hope more solo or medium sized miners get into the game.   If the overall pool of miners is wide but shallow, there will (my unproven assumption) be less incentive for too many people to dedicate and optimize clusters just for mining LTC.

[BitcoinBomb]

Stop making these alternative cryptocurrencies. The main one is already on it's way to becoming valueless. So stop with these stupid ideas. The only thing keeping Bitcoin alive is the underground marketplaces, that actually rely on it to operate.

[Justin Bieber]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations?

[ripper234]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations?

No, but it could easily be adapted to do so in the future if deemed necessary.

[Explodicle]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations?

Why stop there? Geist Geld will confirm your transaction in seconds.

[johnj]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations?

Why stop there? Geist Geld will confirm your transaction in seconds.

Yep.  If confirmation speed is the measure of a *coin, GG is the winner.

Good thing confirmation speed isn't the measure of a *coin.

[Kumala]

I'm throwing my 1.x Ghash/sec at Litecoin, why not do something different from the mainstream. And I am ramping up my exchange to handle Litecoins too (http://www.vircurex.com) once I have some Litecoins to do all the testing needed.

[Lolcust]

I'm throwing my 1.x Ghash/sec at Litecoin, why not do something different from the mainstream. And I am ramping up my exchange to handle Litecoins too (http://www.vircurex.com) once I have some Litecoins to do all the testing needed.

You have a botnet that can do scrypt in gigahashes ?

[Shawshank]

The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.

At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.

Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.

Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations?

Too much frequency in confirmations is not necessarily a good thing. I suppose the approximately 10 minutes confirmations by Bitcoin was given careful consideration. When blocks are generated too quickly, orphan blocks are more easily generated. The trust you get on the confirmation of a transaction in a 10 minute block is definitely much higher than when you deal with two-and-a-half minutes confirmations.

[Kumala]

Unfortunately not, I didn't read careful enough, my GPU power is obviously of no use for mining Litecoin