I'm still a relative noob when it comes to crypto currency mining strategies, so I'm interested in people's opinions.
I think if you can earn 10% more in a multipool (even that is rare recently but CM appears to be able to stay slightly above LTC) then you should do that and if you believe in LTC you can buy 10% more of it with the proceeds
If you mine pure LTC you'll contribute even more to it's rising hashrate/difficulty.
Personally I don't believe in any great recovery in LTC exchange rate without some kind of a drastic shift in its fundamentals. I know some people predicted that LTC value will go up with ASIC arrival because something like that happened with Bitcoin. I just don't get the logic of that or any correlation between ASICs/hashrate/difficulty and exchange rates. The value of a currency is supported by the underlying economy and let's face it, Bitcoin has a real economy behind it, whereas Litecoin doesn't have much, and even that isn't something unique that couldn't be replaced by Bitcoin (e.g. if a retailer accepts LTC they most likely accept BTC too).
Disclaimer: this is in no way based on what I'm doing here with that stats and should not be considered as an investment advice
Thanks for getting back to me Suchmoon. Disclaimer received and understood.
Good point about the multi pool advantage over straight LTC. I guess that even after fees and converting back to LTC I'd be ahead on average. I should have thought of that, but I'm on vacation. Relaxation tends to dull my senses a bit. Or maybe it's the rum drinks
In any case, here's a few more thoughts on the subject.
I think the theory is that increased hash rate is an indicator of miner support and momentum, and with that might come higher adoption with merchants.
Sure today the Litecoin economy is small. But there is more than any other alt coin. Coinmap indicates that Litecoin has about 1/10th the number of on the ground merchants than Bitcoin. But Doge (which would probably be the next contender) isn't even on the map.
The other argument for an LTC recovery would be the simple fact that there is competition in free markets. I find it really hard to believe that BTC will be the only accepted global crypto currency ever. Sure LTC has only slight technical advantages over BTC, but that in combination with LTC's momentum and brand might be enough for a solid runner up position.
Just think about what would happen if Coinbase decided to support LTC? Through their API, they connect multi-billion dollar corporations to the BTC network. If I were on the LTC dev team, I would be schmoozing the crap out of the Coinbase execs. And Coinbase could in turn use LTC for leverage if there's anything they want out of the BTC devs.
I'm not saying that Coinbase will ever in fact include LTC. They've indicated in their FAQ that they currently have no plans to support any alt coin. But if they did, LTC would gain an actual economy overnight.
Still, I'm pretty much with you. Bitcoin is the clear winner right now and LTC just has a bunch of potential. If LTC is perceived by the market as simply a mining venue for conversion to BTC, that potential will not be realized.
Anyway, if I really want to take the LTC risk, maybe what I'd do is go with a more flexible pool that allows me to keep LTC unconverted. That way I'm not going from alt coins to BTC to LTC (which feels wasteful). Coinking supports this feature, although both times I tried to mine with them I got crazy rejects that I believe were due to server side problems.
