Pluses and minuses of Litecoin

[PrintCoins]

So I have been skimming the info on litecoin, but it all seems to be by proponents.

Can someone break down the positives and negatives of litecoin compared to bitcoin?

I'll put out the obvious ones that I know of:

==Pros==
* Faster transaction time (blocks are ~  2.5 minutes)
* Uses CPU rather than GPU for mining

==Cons==
*Less supported
  * Less merchant support than bitcoin (none?)
  * Not as many clients

Try to keep brief and bulleted.

[Vanderbleek]

The other MAJOR con at the moment is the relatively cheap cost of performing a 51% attack.

[terrytibbs]

Iddo did a stellar job composing and justifying a lot of pros and cons on the wiki:
https://github.com/coblee/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-between-Bitcoin-and-Litecoin

[crazy_rabbit]

So I have been skimming the info on litecoin, but it all seems to be by proponents.

Can someone break down the positives and negatives of litecoin compared to bitcoin?

I'll put out the obvious ones that I know of:

==Pros==
* Faster transaction time (blocks are ~  2.5 minutes)
* Uses CPU rather than GPU for mining

==Cons==
*Less supported
  * Less merchant support than bitcoin (none?)
  * Not as many clients

Try to keep brief and bulleted.

Thus far all the con's seem related to the relative youth of LTC as a coin, hopefully it will grow in such a way that the cons are mitigated. I have a bounty running to develop a QR transaction client to help with real-world transactions. The major concern of the coin being 51% is real, however, I hope that spreading interest in Litecoinpool.org's web miner can leaded to a greater distribution of hashing power.

LTC is much younger then bitcoin. I'm sure it also didn't look so super-stellar compared to cash after only 8 weeks or so. :-) Why not help it grow?

[Graet]

So I have been skimming the info on litecoin, but it all seems to be by proponents.

Can someone break down the positives and negatives of litecoin compared to bitcoin?

I'll put out the obvious ones that I know of:

==Pros==
* Faster transaction time (blocks are ~  2.5 minutes)
* Uses CPU rather than GPU for mining

==Cons==
*Less supported
  * Less merchant support than bitcoin (none?)
  * Not as many clients

Try to keep brief and bulleted.

Thus far all the con's seem related to the relative youth of LTC as a coin, hopefully it will grow in such a way that the cons are mitigated. I have a bounty running to develop a QR transaction client to help with real-world transactions. The major concern of the coin being 51% is real, however, I hope that spreading interest in Litecoinpool.org's web miner can leaded to a greater distribution of hashing power.

LTC is much younger then bitcoin. I'm sure it also didn't look so super-stellar compared to cash after only 8 weeks or so. :-) Why not help it grow?

well said crazy_rabbit

[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't see 2.5 minutes as a pro.  If the network ever became large enough it will increase the rate of network fragmentation and increase the size of orphaned chains.

Already Litecoin has experienced a 26 block orphaned chain.

[localhost]

==Cons==
*Less supported
  * Less merchant support than bitcoin (none?)
  * Not as many clients

Con: massive LTC distribution to a small number of people who mined during the first 48-72h. (ok, BTC had the same problem, but it's been +/- absorbed now, while LTC is still young)

Using CPU instead of GPU: I wouldn't really consider it only on the pro side. It's really double-edged, can be considered both as pro and as con.

[pooler]

Using CPU instead of GPU: I wouldn't really consider it only on the pro side. It's really double-edged, can be considered both as pro and as con.

Could you please explain why you see it as a possible con?

[localhost]

Using CPU instead of GPU: I wouldn't really consider it only on the pro side. It's really double-edged, can be considered both as pro and as con.

Could you please explain why you see it as a possible con?

Cheaper 50%+1 attack and botnet nuisance, mainly. Not to mention the need to adapt the proof of work should FGPAs or more capable GPUs arise. Not really a huge issue IMO, but still, it's not 100% white and miraculous as some people claim. It's just another way to think the currency.

[crazy_rabbit]

Using CPU instead of GPU: I wouldn't really consider it only on the pro side. It's really double-edged, can be considered both as pro and as con.

Although some people describe it as 'fairness', in reality the major pro of being a CPU based coin is that a greater number of people have an opportunity to participate in the creation of coins. This participation ability, even if relatively small depending on the power of ones CPU, still gives the user a strong sense of Ownership in the coin. It is this sense of ownership that will drive users to promoted, develop and invest in the currency. It also provides a easy way for new users to get involved with the community. Unlike Bitcoin which now requires specialized hardware to participate, most people have access to a CPU that at present can mine to some extent.

The lifeblood of any of these coins is the users and the ability for the coin to grow at a relatively rapid pace (faster then the rate of decreasing interest in the coin) CPU mining despite it's potential disadvantages can success because of this great advantage.

Could you please explain why you see it as a possible con?

Cheaper 50%+1 attack and botnet nuisance, mainly. Not to mention the need to adapt the proof of work should FGPAs or more capable GPUs arise. Not really a huge issue IMO, but still, it's not 100% white and miraculous as some people claim. It's just another way to think the currency.

[illpoet]

pro: litecoins are nifty.

[coin_toss]

pro: chance to become an early adopter

[localhost]

pro: chance to become an early adopter

Con: first-48h adopters were able to stash in the 10k LTCs already. Check out how long it would take now with a standard quad core CPU.

[g2x3k]

We'd like everyone to get their chance at being an "early adopter",
so we've preannounced Litecoin several days ahead of launch day for you to be able to prepare your mining setup on our Testnet.
There have also been no more than two blocks mined ahead of release; the genesis block followed by a block to verify it.

there was quite a few mining alrdy at the start i was in bit late but hey

besides that everyone mining now will have been mining alot more then when network is 20x, 100x times bigger so meh

[localhost]

We'd like everyone to get their chance at being an "early adopter",
so we've preannounced Litecoin several days ahead of launch day for you to be able to prepare your mining setup on our Testnet.

The good way to do that is to adjust the difficulty. Not to say "be there at this precise time for your chance to get much more coins than you should". The difficulty was maladjusted on purpose.

besides that everyone mining now will have been mining alot more then when if network is 20x, 100x times bigger so meh

Fixed typo

[Red Emerald]

Iddo did a stellar job composing and justifying a lot of pros and cons on the wiki:
https://github.com/coblee/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-between-Bitcoin-and-Litecoin

That is a great link.

I am playing around with Litecoin, but I still want to find something more useful to do with my miner's CPU.  I don't think the few cents worth of an alt-chain is really worth the temps and electricity.  Is there a GPU hostile folding@home-like project?

[localhost]

I am playing around with Litecoin, but I still want to find something more useful to do with my miner's CPU.  I don't think the few cents worth of an alt-chain is really worth the temps and electricity.  Is there a GPU hostile folding@home-like project?

The point of Folding@Home and alikes is to compute as fast as possible, so I wouldn't say they can be "GPU-hostile" as in "sabotaged not to work in GPUs", but if you look in BOINC you'll find some projects like QMC@Home that work only on CPUs.

[Red Emerald]

I am playing around with Litecoin, but I still want to find something more useful to do with my miner's CPU.  I don't think the few cents worth of an alt-chain is really worth the temps and electricity.  Is there a GPU hostile folding@home-like project?

The point of Folding@Home and alikes is to compute as fast as possible, so I wouldn't say they can be "GPU-hostile" as in "sabotaged not to work in GPUs", but if you look in BOINC you'll find some projects like QMC@Home that work only on CPUs.

Cool.  I was assuming the reason for being GPU hostile was not because they want to handicap themselves, but rather because of some inherent problem with their calculation.

[localhost]

Cool.  I was assuming the reason for being GPU hostile was not because they want to handicap themselves, but rather because of some inherent problem with their calculation.

If you're referring to LTC, they don't view this as a handicap. It's on purpose because they think that it helps more casual people (who usually don't have big GPUs) become miners too. And probably also because a new GPU cryptocurrency would have to face the competition of BTC.

[Red Emerald]

Cool.  I was assuming the reason for being GPU hostile was not because they want to handicap themselves, but rather because of some inherent problem with their calculation.

If you're referring to LTC, they don't view this as a handicap. It's on purpose because they think that it helps more casual people (who usually don't have big GPUs) become miners too. And probably also because a new GPU cryptocurrency would have to face the competition of BTC.

No, I'm not referring to litecoin. I'm referring to some of the projects on BOINC or other similar systems.