Why the community should embrace LTC rather than BTC

[lynn_402]

1- So many Bitcoins are held by hackers. I'd feel quite bad knowing that such no-life looters have gotten filthy rich because of the coin I invested in. On the other hand, I've never heard of Litecoins being stolen. (Sure hackers will want them as much as BTC when value will increase, but cryptos will be more mature at that point, so will the user. The average user will probably be better informed in ways to secure their money. They'll have learnt from Gox and all the other fiascos.)

2- Definitely a better potential. Litecoin is still at about 6% of the total BTC's market cap, so it has a huge room for growth. There's more and more interest in it from the Chinese exchanges, and in November we saw quite well the influence they can have.

3- I don't have data to back this up, but I believe Litecoins are better distributed, there are less individuals that hold a big percentage of the total market cap. I have nothing against people who hold a lot of wealth, by still a better distribution seems preferable. Especially in the mind of potential futur investors.

4- The rise of scrypt Asics. In Bitcoin's history, the rise in hashing power of the network has always been correlated with a price increase. In other words, valuable assets always tend to have a price that matches their cost of production; since difficulty is increasing, so is the cost of production (it takes more miners to mine the same amount of LTC), so the price will increase.

I'm sorry for posting statements that have probably been posted 46548286 times before, but I felt like making a list.
Please feel free to add anything to it

[Kenshin]

Litecoin will attract hackers, when the value of Litecoin worth a lot more. No crypto currency are safe from attack. Due to the non reversible nature.

[lynn_402]

Litecoin will attract hackers, when the value of Litecoin worth a lot more. No crypto currency are safe from attack. Due to the non reversible nature.

I've edited my post just before you added that
Sure hackers will want them as much as BTC when value will increase, but cryptos will be more mature at that point, so will the user. The average user will probably be better informed in ways to secure their money. They'll have learnt from Gox and all the other fiascos.

[kalus]

1- I've never heard of Litecoins being stolen.

google is your friend:  

litecoin theft:  http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1js9ir/burnside_likely_behind_theft_of_1450_ltc/

litecoin scam:  https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=2266.0

account stolen to mine litecoins:  http://www.coindesk.com/online-thief-steals-amazon-account-mine-litecoins-cloud/

an analogous argument for windows malware vs. apple malware exists:  less mainstream awareness, market penetration, and fewer end users means fewer malware exists for mac.  similarly, fewer people knowing what a litecoin vs. bitcoin means there are fewer idiots trying to steal it.

2- Litecoin is still at about 6% of the total BTC's market cap, so it has a huge room for growth.

so that means dogecoin has even more room for growth than litecoin!

3- I don't have data to back this up, but I believe Litecoins are better distributed,

I have some data right here:

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-litecoin-addresses.html  3.52% addresses own  91.35% of all LTC.

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html  3.46% btc addresses own 95.03% of all BTC.

looks like similar Gini Index for bitcoin and litecoin, with litecoin being marginally better distributed.  both currencies have a >90% concentration of wealth in  fewer than 100,000 addresses.

4- The rise of scrypt Asics. In Bitcoin's history, the rise in hashing power of the network has always been correlated with a price increase. In other words, valuable assets always tend to have a price that matches their cost of production; since difficulty is increasing, so is the cost of production (it takes more miners to mine the same amount of LTC), so the price will increase.

1. scrypt asics are not as big a leap in hashrate from GPU as SHA-256 asics were from GPU.

2. there are more altcoins based on scrypt in competition with the hashrate of these new asics.  bitcoin has first mover advantage, but we've seen dogecoin taking hashrate away from litecoin, so it is possible for a newer coin to impact an earlier coin.  

I think the coins vying for scrypt asics will throw a curve ball into ASICS -> LTC -> price increase.

[lynn_402]

google is your friend:  

litecoin theft:  http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1js9ir/burnside_likely_behind_theft_of_1450_ltc/

litecoin scam:  https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=2266.0

account stolen to mine litecoins:  http://www.coindesk.com/online-thief-steals-amazon-account-mine-litecoins-cloud/

an analogous argument for windows malware vs. apple malware exists:  less mainstream awareness, market penetration, and fewer end users means fewer malware exists for mac.  similarly, fewer people knowing what a litecoin vs. bitcoin means there are fewer idiots trying to steal it.

These thefts seems quite petty compared with the hundred of thousands Bitcoins stolen from/by gox. And the scammer seemed quite obvious. I believe the community already has learned a lot from this, and most users will keep their coin in a safe and reputable wallet from now on. So the percentage of stolen LTC will probably always be lower than that of BTC.

so that means dogecoin has even more room for growth than litecoin!

Theoretically yes, but I believe its over-valued since it appeals mostly to teenagers/young adults who have few money to invest in it. Plus its based on a meme which is, by definition, ephemeral. But I might be wrong.

I have some data right here:

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-litecoin-addresses.html  3.52% addresses own  91.35% of all LTC.

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html  3.46% btc addresses own 95.03% of all BTC.

looks like similar Gini Index for bitcoin and litecoin, with litecoin being marginally better distributed.  both currencies have a concentration of wealth with fewer than 100,000 addresses.

I don't believe that's realistic, neither for BTC nor LTC. I'm sure many of these address actually belong to exchanges who hold these coins but definitely don't own them.

1. scrypt asics are not as big a leap in hashrate from GPU as SHA-256 asics were from GPU.

That's because the first one just began to be sold. KNC is already planing to release a 100mh/s scrypt asic in June.


Thanks for your well-documented reply.

[lynn_402]

I've solely mentioned Litecoin, but of course all of this applies to any coin that is backed by competent and long-term sighted developpers and users. (Because its not true that Cryptos are backed by nothing and hold no intrinsinct value - they're backed by intelligence and human rationnality.)

[hellscabane]

Regarding your fourth point, I don't know if that will necessarily be the case. The difference this time around is that when the Bitcoin ASICs first came out there were only a handful of coins (pretty much BTC, PPC, TRC and FRC). Now though, there is a plethora of competing coins using sCrypt and quite a few of them have significant market caps; plus there are even more that have smaller caps, and even more that keep getting churned out. Secondly, there are no other coins being built upon any of the sCrypt coins like Bitcoin has (no NMC, DVC, etc.). I think these two factors will severely inhibit the continual capitalization of LTC's market cap.

That said, if most of the new network power goes towards LTC, I think that'll mitigate the prevention of growth. But I don't think that'll necessarily happen; and if it does, the effect won't be as significant as it was for Bitcoin.

[MicroGuy]

I've solely mentioned Litecoin, but of course all of this applies to any coin that is backed by competent and long-term sighted developers and users. (Because its not true that Cryptos are backed by nothing and hold no intrinsic value - they're backed by intelligence and human rationality.)

In the end, a few of the altcoins with solid development, loyal communities, and brandable names will rise to challenge the mighty Bitcoin.

[lynn_402]

Regarding your fourth point, I don't know if that will necessarily be the case. The difference this time around is that when the Bitcoin ASICs first came out there were only a handful of coins (pretty much BTC, PPC, TRC and FRC). Now though, there is a plethora of competing coins using sCrypt and quite a few of them have significant market caps; plus there are even more that have smaller caps, and even more that keep getting churned out. Secondly, there are no other coins being built upon any of the sCrypt coins like Bitcoin has (no NMC, DVC, etc.). I think these two factors will severely inhibit the continual capitalization of LTC's market cap.

That said, if most of the new network power goes towards LTC, I think that'll mitigate the prevention of growth. But I don't think that'll necessarily happen; and if it does, the effect won't be as significant as it was for Bitcoin.

That's a good point, but I think that the amount of coins with considerable market cap is offset by Gridseed's huge production capacity. They are producing way more of them than there were of Asic miners in Bitcoin's early days, since there was a lot less customers. Scrypt hashrate will most probably explode in the next few months. Plus, a huge number of the irrelevant coins who dillute the market will probably dissapear, as people lose hope and see that there is less and less profit to be made from the pump and dumps.

[lynn_402]

I've solely mentioned Litecoin, but of course all of this applies to any coin that is backed by competent and long-term sighted developers and users. (Because its not true that Cryptos are backed by nothing and hold no intrinsic value - they're backed by intelligence and human rationality.)

In the end, a few of the altcoins with solid development, loyal communities, and brandable names will rise to challenge the mighty Bitcoin.

That's funny, when I saw "brandable names" in your post I immediately knew you were a Goldcoin supporter
I do hold a few GLD, so good luck with that!

[El Dude]

The amount of LTC hate in this forums is disgusting , people don't realize that the litecoin devs have contributed to many updates that help both bitcoin and litecoin. There's a reason Litecoin has a 450 million market cap.

[kelsey]

The amount of LTC hate in this forums is disgusting , people don't realize that the litecoin devs have contributed to many updates that help both bitcoin and litecoin. There's a reason Litecoin has a 450 million market cap.

Yes and there's a reason why its the base for most copy paste alts. Been around these alts for awhile and (even not looking at market cap), I'm yet to see an alt better then ltc.

[kalus]

I have some data right here:

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-litecoin-addresses.html  3.52% addresses own  91.35% of all LTC.

http://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html  3.46% btc addresses own 95.03% of all BTC.

looks like similar Gini Index for bitcoin and litecoin, with litecoin being marginally better distributed.  both currencies have a concentration of wealth with fewer than 100,000 addresses.

I don't believe that's realistic, neither for BTC nor LTC. I'm sure many of these address actually belong to exchanges who hold these coins but definitely don't own them.

could we say the methodology for basing both LTC and BTC on wallets would have the same effect?  right now, LTC has a higher trading volume than BTC, which would indicate that more of it would be in exchange wallets, though.  

how else would we determine Gini numbers for LTC?  i'm also interested in a more equitably distributed coin.

1. scrypt asics are not as big a leap in hashrate from GPU as SHA-256 asics were from GPU.

That's because the first one just began to be sold. KNC is already planing to release a 100mh/s scrypt asic in June.

asics have been mining in numbers since december (i.e. gridseeds now are really batch 2 or 3).  we've seen gradual, steady increase in scrypt network hashrate, but new hardware are spread out with more competing currencies to mine.  

I think we need asics sooner rather than later, because they are not so much a threat to litecoin as they will keep the blockchain safe and distributed.  keeping the blockchain distributed is as important as distribution of currency.  In the end it will be an asic derivative that will maintain cryptocurrencies.

GPU will also advance along with asics.  the predominant mining card is based on 2 year old technology, so it will be interesting to see more multi-core cards, and more efficient GPU.