Why Litecoin will always be a top 2 Crypto

[Saigonsmokes]

More Litecoin News:

http://www.coindesk.com/hive-adds-litecoin-support-new-web-wallet/

[Saigonsmokes]

Charlie Lees recent Litecoin Presentation @ BTC MIAMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le5ByHtssnc

[woogie]

What about introducing dogecoin into litecoin blockchain?

[FreeJack2k2]

Charlie Lees recent Litecoin Presentation @ BTC MIAMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le5ByHtssnc

That was back in January, but it's interesting.

I think the biggest problem I sometimes have with Charles in his public presentations is that he's almost too humble. He'll say something like, "My biggest achievement is convincing people Litecoin has value" and while it's said for the humor value, it's actually really damaging from a marketing standpoint. It says to people, "I basically conned you into thinking Litecoin is worthwhile" and draws attention away from all the legitimate reasons why Litecoin DOES have value.

So that and the "silver to gold" analogy are things I kinda wish he'd abandon, in his public speaking. Charles needs to get to the point where he firmly believes that Litecoin deserves (and has earned) its seat at the table and should be seen as a complement to Bitcoin, not as "Bitcoin Jr." or "Bitcoin Lite."

What about introducing dogecoin into litecoin blockchain?

Charles suggested that months ago and Jackson Palmer (along with most of the Dogecoin community) shot him down. I think the perception was that by merged mining with Litecoin, they were accepting defeat...which they kind of needed to do, to survive.

[Zer0Sum]

People need to look at history.

Bitcoin's first ASIC hardware started shipping in January of 2013, when the price of Bitcoin was around $14 and virtually the only places you could spend it were the Silk Road and Wikileaks.

When the Winklevii (read: smart money) noticed the huge amount of money that was about to flow into dedicated hardware infrastructure for Bitcoin, they bought in big. They weren't alone. Tons of venture capital groups and investors started to take notice of it. Price boom. Increased media exposure. More price boom. Growth in adoption. All of this coming from the vote of confidence of ASIC manufacturers and miners. The block reward halving which lead to miner hoarding didn't hurt.

So here we are, and Litecoin is in almost exactly the same position Bitcoin was at to start 2013. Except that Litecoin doesn't have the negative press of the Silk Road/black market ties to overcome, it doesn't have to leap all the hurdles of policy and P.R. that Bitcoin did. In a lot of ways, Bitcoin has cleared a path for it. So the barriers that Bitcoin faced aren't all there, anymore. The only real hurdle Litecoin faces is getting itself off of Bitcoin's coattails.

If history repeats and the smart money follows the infrastructure money, we're going to see a lot of positive changes coming Litecoin's way over the next 12-18 months and beyond. I also don't think it's always going to be a year to a year and a half behind Bitcoin...at a certain point, when the public is educated enough about digital currency, the two can co-exist peacefully. But in this current climate of the "get rich quick" mentality, with people hoping for (or trying to create) bubbles in alt coins to profit from, Litecoin is a rock.

This is a compelling narrative.

When do the ASICs start kicking in... when will we see 10 fold increase in hash rate?

[FreeJack2k2]

This is a compelling narrative.

When do the ASICs start kicking in... when will we see 10 fold increase in hash rate?

Well, take a look at Bitcoinwisdom's record of hashrate changes.

First of all, you had the Gridseed ASICs that started shipping out in late January and early February. The network started seeing some pretty significant jumps there as those deployed. In fact, it appeared that a lot of GPU hashrate started leaving the week prior, with the difficulty adjusting down over 20%, twice in a row...only to be followed by a 34% jump the next adjustment.

Jan 30th - 94,496 MH/s

So then came February as the Gridseeds shipped out around the globe. You'd see adjustments with large drops, followed by adjustments with large increases and by the end of February, we were almost right where we started the month. But my theory is that a good chunk of the GPU mining had transitioned.

Feb 28th - 90,059 MH/s

Then came March...and the new "blade" form factor along with other Gridseed-based products. March just SCREAMED "accumulate" to me as the miners that were transitioning from GPU to ASIC poured money into it. The difference in network hashrate was huge.

March 30th - 162,551 MH/s

Most of April was slow...until the very last week, where the network jumped over 50,000MH/s. Why? Innosilicon's A2 Terminator-based systems with 80MH/s performance that dwarfed the Gridseed hardware.

April 29th - 203,086 MH/s

From the end of April until today, since the launch of the Innosilicon systems, we've seen only FOUR decreases and none above 5.5%...the rest have been increases, as those Innosilicon, Zeusminer and Silverfish systems proliferate.

Today - 357,790 MH/s

So before ASICs: 90,059 MH/s
After ASICs: 357,790 MH/s

That's an almost 300% increase in network hashrate (unless my math is wrong, definitely not unheard of), in four months since the first ASICs launched.

Now, consider that the largest form factor ASIC you can currently buy is 80MH/s...and the next salvo of hardware being shipped is likely to be Alpha Technology's Vipers in mid to late July, at 250MH/s each, followed within a month or two by KNCMiner's 250MH/s systems (and then their 400MH/s systems a month or so later).

So yeah...my guess is, we're going to see a total tenfold increase in network hashrate thanks to ASICs, by the end of the year. Of course, there will be losses as miners decommission their Gridseed equipment due to lack of profitability, etc...but the size of the incoming hashrate will dwarf it.

Granted, a factor in the difficulty adjustments is the movement of multipools, but I think there are clear mile-markers with ASICs you can point to (and I don't think multipools have THAT great of an impact on Litecoin).

[rugrats]

So there seems to be hoards of Litecoin threads, Either vehemently for it or against it claiming 'official' death. Most of these threads are self-moderating so as to reinforce the views of the original poster. Which is bullshit nonsense.

So here is an unmoderated thread (by myself at least, Forum mods still apply) where you can freely discuss. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=663590.0

My personal views on Litecoin are that it has very little reason to hold the #2 spot anymore.

The majority of the reasons it ascended to the #2 spot are no longer valid arguments.

Sure it was 'ASIC proof', We all know how that worked out.
Sure it wasnt BitCoin. But there is 100's of 'Not BitCoins' now.

It was innovative until 9000 other people did it and improved or experimented with the formula.

The one thing that is still a valid reason for it to retain #2 is seniority and perhaps derivative works

Another interesting way to look at coins would be to rate them by Algo, of all coins using a specific Algo, which is top for each. Now rate each algo by relevance or importance. And that is your new 'top coins'

I think so too. Litecoin has seniority, but can that alone guarantee its future relevancy?
Perhaps I am wrong, but there are a number of more innovative coins with more energetic user base. I see them closing the gap with Litecoin with each passing day.

One could argue that Bitcoin survives because of seniority, and seniority is the reason for Bitcoin acceptance, so why not?  Maybe Litecoin is boring because there is no Silk Road, there is no MtGox (that one was close), almost no lost and stolen coins.  Those are likely THE reasons Bitcoin ascended, and are no longer valid arguments, but they played the major parts of making it.  So, both Bitcoin and Litecoin are changing fundamentals, is that a bad thing?

All I see is that both BTC and LTC are growing up, older brother is still young, younger brother is even younger, and the other alts are babies.  BTC and LTC are innovations that are still not understood and/or used worldwide, and I'm still waiting for the next really useful mainstream innovative coin that survives longer than pump&dump (it will happen one day, of course, I'm not saying everything sucks).  And to have a good pump, energetic user base is created on newer coins when needed.

But we are not discussing the merits of Bitcoin now, are we? That will take another thread and a thousand.

Litecoin positioned itself as the 'silver' to Bitcoin's 'gold', and you have to admit that allowed Litecoin to prosper in the slipstream. Just look at the historical correlation between fiat value. It also doesn't hurt that most of Litecoin's whales are also Bitcoin whales.

However, while Bitcoin's public perception has leaped by the order of several magnitudes, has Litecoin done the same? Has Litecoin distinguished and cemented itself as, to borrow your analogy, the younger brother? Or is it merely a displaced and dare I say, undeserved sense of entitlement?

Consider the community. Take a look at, say, Peercoin. Have you visited their forum? For example, look at the stark difference in how the Litecoin and Peercoin communities handled the video making campaign. Consider the funding, fervor and professionalism. What about Reddit? Look at say, Darkcoin. The first page is filled with new threads from the last 24 hours. Litecoin, on the other hand, has threads that dates back a week. You may find this hard to believe, but some of the third-tier altcoins today have communities that is far more vocal and louder than Litecoin. If you don't believe me, take a look at say, Minerals, and you will see what I mean.

Consider development. Bitcoin has a thriving development community that features some of the best and brightest. As a non-programmer, I sometimes spend hours reading through the threads here - it is that interesting. Ditto for Nxt, Darkcoin, etc. What about Litecoin? I was literally shocked reading this Litecoin wiki entry by Warren Togami explaining why Litecoin is rejecting X11: https://litecoin.info/X11 . The level of wrong and opinions-disguised-as-facts here is something one would expect from people like you and me - not the Lead Dev of LTC.

Finally, a great indicator of Litecoin's presence within the general public. Here's some screen caps of Google's related keyword search data for

• Bitcoin: https://i.imgur.com/YoC0jvL.png
• Litecoin: https://i.imgur.com/KrVax0U.png
• Dogecoin: https://i.imgur.com/0m6msJ2.png
• Darkcoin: https://i.imgur.com/m3Xnpme.png

Things that you noticed from the above:
• Litecoin lags significantly behind Bitcoin - by as much as 30 times less
• Dogecoin generates higher related search queries
• Darkcoin generates up to a third of Litecoin's search volume, just several months after launching - and rising.

Bear in mind, the search terms used fits the profile of people from outside of crypto, and thus, is a great comparative indicator of the level of brand awareness for the four coins.

Let me be clear that I am not a bagholder of any of the coins mentioned above - almost 95% of my cryptos are in BTC. Let me also be clear that I am not likely to return and respond to this thread. I don't usually spend too much time writing - I prefer to read and/or make money.    However, this needs to be said: Litecoin does not have an automatic claim to be the silver to Bitcoin's gold. It has to work and earn that position. While Charlie Lee is definitely an incredibly brillliant, brilliant man, he is not a messiah capable of orchestrating community-wide PR, development and adoption campaigns. Scrypt has lost its shine, and you cannot just depend on giant miners to secure the network (or the goodwill of Coinotron to not launch a double spending attack). Neither can Litecoin just coast along behind Bitcoin.

The sky is definitely not falling - but it is going to rain, and denying it won't turn the dark clouds away (boy, I am so good at making awful idioms).

[FreeJack2k2]

Whenever I see the "community" argument, I have to shake my head.

What has Dogecoin's fervent, boisterous and "fun" community done for that coin's success rate? It has gone from being over 200 satoshis to like 50 in the space of a few months.

You know what matters? How much money is in it from an investor standpoint, and how much money is in it from an infrastructure standpoint, and the fundamentals of the coin itself.

Did the Bitcoin Foundation have it all together back in January 2013? No...it was founded in September 2012. It certainly wasn't the organization that it is, today. I think the Litecoin Foundation was formed late last year. Does it have a ways to go? Sure...that's a fair statement. I think it'll get there, though. It can learn from the mistakes that the Bitcoin Foundation has made.

I have been involved with a lot of alts. They ALL, at some point, had VERY active communities with a lot of enthusiasm...of course they did. Everyone was involved because they were hoping that coin would be the "next big thing" and they'd get to be the guy buying the sports car with his hoard of coin. That doesn't make them good coins with prospects for mainstream adoption. They have all resorted to pumping and dumping. That "community" you're talking about is a coordinated pump.

Litecoin has the money in it, well and above any other coin that isn't called Bitcoin. A dedicated hardware infrastructure is currently being laid for it that will explode its value to business and investors...and it really doesn't matter how many new posts you can count on the Litecoin reddit page every day. When the mainstream media starts reporting on "the new mining boom" in Litecoin later this year, that reddit page is going to fill up with people jumping on the bandwagon.

And with regard to Darkcoin...it has pump & dump written all over it, to me. Small float, interesting story (anonymity) but virtually no prospects at widespread adoption to support the current price. It's the next Auroracoin, IMO.

[FlyForFun]

Darkcoin will take over soon

[Aricoin_Mike]

Litecoin 24 hour volume $ 1,306,188   
NXT  24 hour volume $ 60,987

which coin looks dead to you ?

For some trols Litecoin is dead or dying. Probably they want to lower the price to buy more, because they see the potential in this coin.

[Marlo Stanfield]

Whenever I see the "community" argument, I have to shake my head.

What has Dogecoin's fervent, boisterous and "fun" community done for that coin's success rate? It has gone from being over 200 satoshis to like 50 in the space of a few months.

You know what matters? How much money is in it from an investor standpoint, and how much money is in it from an infrastructure standpoint, and the fundamentals of the coin itself.

Did the Bitcoin Foundation have it all together back in January 2013? No...it was founded in September 2012. It certainly wasn't the organization that it is, today. I think the Litecoin Foundation was formed late last year. Does it have a ways to go? Sure...that's a fair statement. I think it'll get there, though. It can learn from the mistakes that the Bitcoin Foundation has made.

I have been involved with a lot of alts. They ALL, at some point, had VERY active communities with a lot of enthusiasm...of course they did. Everyone was involved because they were hoping that coin would be the "next big thing" and they'd get to be the guy buying the sports car with his hoard of coin. That doesn't make them good coins with prospects for mainstream adoption. They have all resorted to pumping and dumping. That "community" you're talking about is a coordinated pump.

Litecoin has the money in it, well and above any other coin that isn't called Bitcoin. A dedicated hardware infrastructure is currently being laid for it that will explode its value to business and investors...and it really doesn't matter how many new posts you can count on the Litecoin reddit page every day. When the mainstream media starts reporting on "the new mining boom" in Litecoin later this year, that reddit page is going to fill up with people jumping on the bandwagon.

And with regard to Darkcoin...it has pump & dump written all over it, to me. Small float, interesting story (anonymity) but virtually no prospects at widespread adoption to support the current price. It's the next Auroracoin, IMO.

Do you really expect the mainstream media to be reporting on the 'mining boom' with litecoin? This is first time I've heard anyone speculate that there is going to be any attention from any source other than the regular insiders. It doesn't seem like a very interesting story to me. But maybe I'm just not thinking about it from the right angle. What sort of boom do you expect to happen anyway? Do you expect a big price rise and subsequent boom in mining profitability for those with scrypt asics mining litecoin?

Personally, I hope Litecoin can get it's development in order and start pushing forward technically, but I'm not seeing it here yet.

One thing that jumps out at me as a big positive is the Electrum development. Having Electrum for litecoin will be a big positive I think. It's a great wallet.

[jets567]

Litecoin's trade volume dwarfs most other coins.

Litecoin is supported by a huge number of exchanges. No other altcoin comes close.

Like the comparison or not, Litecoin is silver to Bitcoin's gold. Having a cryptocurrency trading pair is important for arbitrage reasons. Litecoin is playing that role today. It's hard for another coin to take over that role.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

[devphp]

Litecoin is going to dive under $9 next week. Get your buy orders ready, bagholders

[Marlo Stanfield]

Litecoin's trade volume dwarfs most other coins.

Litecoin is supported by a huge number of exchanges. No other altcoin comes close.

Like the comparison or not, Litecoin is silver to Bitcoin's gold. Having a cryptocurrency trading pair is important for arbitrage reasons. Litecoin is playing that role today. It's hard for another coin to take over that role.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

Well people have been saying that since Litecoin was created and while it may have been a decent analogy at some point, it's worn a bit thin at this point. A more accurate analogy would be that bitcoin is todays bitcoin, and litecoin is todays gold. Archaic and not very useful outside the fact that it has a large market. Valuable for the sake of being valuable. That is of course unless the Litecoin devs step up and start upgrading it.

[Dallas5]

I like how you defend litecoin, but there was no need to sink to their tactics by creating a self-moderated thread IMO.

[TheMage]

Litecoin's trade volume dwarfs most other coins.

Litecoin is supported by a huge number of exchanges. No other altcoin comes close.

Like the comparison or not, Litecoin is silver to Bitcoin's gold. Having a cryptocurrency trading pair is important for arbitrage reasons. Litecoin is playing that role today. It's hard for another coin to take over that role.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

Well people have been saying that since Litecoin was created and while it may have been a decent analogy at some point, it's worn a bit thin at this point. A more accurate analogy would be that bitcoin is todays bitcoin, and litecoin is todays gold. Archaic and not very useful outside the fact that it has a large market. Valuable for the sake of being valuable. That is of course unless the Litecoin devs step up and start upgrading it.

The only people today stating the "silver/gold" analogy are mainly trolls making fun of the slogan. The community trying to change this by a rebranding of sorts.

Also the comments about the devs are really a low blow. Our devs do some fantastic work, and I am personally very happy with the work they do. Litecoin is an established coin, just because someone comes out with a new technology (many times its more of a gimmick), doesnt mean LTC should rush to incorporate it. There are ramifications for doing so, such as possible hard forks. You dont see Bitcoin incorporating this stuff do you? If these new ideas were really that great, you would think the grandfather of all coins would get it into the protocol.

I like how you defend litecoin, but there was no need to sink to their tactics by creating a self-moderated thread IMO.

I cant speak for the OP, but I believe that he did so in order to get away from the nonconstructive postings (i.e. trolling). I'm sure if you had a reasonable argument and constructive points he would be willing to entertain them .

[giveBTCpls]

Monero has objectively more reasons to become top 2. You didn't list any tangible reason for LTC to be above XMR beyond "LTC was the first successful alt-coin". There are no advantages over BTC, wereas XMR has advantages over BTC.

[Marlo Stanfield]

Litecoin's trade volume dwarfs most other coins.

Litecoin is supported by a huge number of exchanges. No other altcoin comes close.

Like the comparison or not, Litecoin is silver to Bitcoin's gold. Having a cryptocurrency trading pair is important for arbitrage reasons. Litecoin is playing that role today. It's hard for another coin to take over that role.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

Well people have been saying that since Litecoin was created and while it may have been a decent analogy at some point, it's worn a bit thin at this point. A more accurate analogy would be that bitcoin is todays bitcoin, and litecoin is todays gold. Archaic and not very useful outside the fact that it has a large market. Valuable for the sake of being valuable. That is of course unless the Litecoin devs step up and start upgrading it.

The only people today stating the "silver/gold" analogy are mainly trolls making fun of the slogan. The community trying to change this by a rebranding of sorts.

Also the comments about the devs are really a low blow. Our devs do some fantastic work, and I am personally very happy with the work they do. Litecoin is an established coin, just because someone comes out with a new technology (many times its more of a gimmick), doesnt mean LTC should rush to incorporate it. There are ramifications for doing so, such as possible hard forks. You dont see Bitcoin incorporating this stuff do you? If these new ideas were really that great, you would think the grandfather of all coins would get it into the protocol.

Well, I don't mean to offend anyone but I've been asking people for weeks now what the Litecoin dev team have done, or at least what they are planning on doing and you're the first person I've seen step up to even address the issue. I think Litecoin has a lot of potential and I even owned some when it was worth 5 cents(no, I didn't hold unfortunately ). If Litecoin had more people such as yourself and OP seriously looking to move the coin forward instead arrogantly dismissing any criticisms or questions of what we can expect from Litecoin in the future then I would have more confidence in the coin.

As far as Bitcoin is concerned I don't ever expect any thing but the bare minimum amount of coding to keep the protocol and associated core code base running securely. With the political situation in Bitcoin the way it is and the Bitcoin Foundation's current mandate they're going to be playing defense forever pretty much. I don't think it's in Litecoin's best interest to emulate Bitcoin in that regard and play defense as well. I think altcoins like Litecoin should really be seizing the opportunity to push forward and earn a larger share of the market. Litecoin is in the best position to do this by far, but I don't see the will of the community being there. Maybe I'm wrong. This post made me change my current evaluation of the community from 'zero passion' to 'a few vocal passionate supporters' which is a good thing.

Life would be easier for me if it was clear as day that Litecoin was the one serious contender to bitcoin at this point like it was a few years ago. It would be cool to see that happen. But I'm skeptical.

[slapper]

Litecoin's trade volume dwarfs most other coins.

Litecoin is supported by a huge number of exchanges. No other altcoin comes close.

Like the comparison or not, Litecoin is silver to Bitcoin's gold. Having a cryptocurrency trading pair is important for arbitrage reasons. Litecoin is playing that role today. It's hard for another coin to take over that role.

spot on about LTC! I like #3, how BTC is todays gold and LTC is todays silver

Well people have been saying that since Litecoin was created and while it may have been a decent analogy at some point, it's worn a bit thin at this point. A more accurate analogy would be that bitcoin is todays bitcoin, and litecoin is todays gold. Archaic and not very useful outside the fact that it has a large market. Valuable for the sake of being valuable. That is of course unless the Litecoin devs step up and start upgrading it.

The only people today stating the "silver/gold" analogy are mainly trolls making fun of the slogan. The community trying to change this by a rebranding of sorts.

Isn't Saigonsmokes an LTC advocate? He just used this analogy. Are you calling him a troll? Also for months this has been used by all LTC supporters here including how a gold-silver ratio has to be maintained. Who comes with this stuff?? Next you will say you guys were never really "little brother currency" or "little sister currency" either and that it is just trolls who used the terms

[fonzie]

LTC - RxIxP 2014

Endgame for the mother of all scamcoins