I said a few months ago that with the incoming promise of scrypt ASICs that we will see an arms race of new algos, that scrypt would die off as a result.
My hypothesis was that if scrypt was created as an answer to ASIC monopolisation/centralisation of the SHA-256 algo, introducing ASICs would only serve to reduce the value of the scrypt algorithm. There is no point having two separate algos that fulfill the same purpose. I pity those who dumped money into preorders, which based on the press releases are still very shady, and probably won't be delivered in time to catch the support of the market. By the time they ship, it's highly unlikely that most scrypt coins (excepting LTC and perhaps DOGE, which will be hit by the manufacturers before they release the ASICs) will have enough buy support to enable a ROI on scrypt ASICs.
If you look at the market caps of the top 20 coins (
www.coinmarketcap.com) there are now only 4 scrypt coins, (all of which are dying at a rapid rate, with some suffering 75-80% losses). This is also partially due to the bearish (until a few days ago) movement in BTC, however, we have seen many, many large increases in alternative algo coins, e.g. DRK, BC, VTC etc. This is a transition of the alt market from scrypt to the alternatives. Many traders saw DRK as simply a coin being pumped by some behind the scenes. It has become clear that while it has been pumped, the market is shifting.
My further hypothesis is there will be some mixed algo coins that will get some attention in order to cater for new hashes entering the field. MYR is looking like a good buy at this point.
Is this the end for scrypt?
