Alt Chains are the future

[smoothie]

Disclaimer: At the time writing this I own 0 LTC and only BTC.

Bitcoin's success is due to its agreement between many people that it is "money". More so free-market money.

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

As you can see I have all BTC at the moment. So I'm not cheering on LTC or NMC in any way shape or form, just giving the benefit of the doubt that the free markets could choose it too to be a medium of exchange.

Time will tell..

 

[Greedi]

Disclaimer: At the time writing this I own 0 LTC and only BTC.

Bitcoin's success is due to its agreement between many people that it is "money". More so free-market money.

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

As you can see I have all BTC at the moment. So I'm not cheering on LTC or NMC in any way shape or form, just giving the benefit of the doubt that the free markets could choose it too to be a medium of exchange.

Time will tell..

 

only one thing to say

+1

[wachtwoord]

It might very well be something different than BTC that wins in the end (although not likely) but I want to be it wouldn't bet it won't be LTC as it's just a copy of BTC with a weird memory restriction to try and make mining more difficult on GPUs. Maybe someone will think of an actual improvement which cannot be incorporated into Bitcoin.

[dree12]

The freemarket has chosen.  Look at the "market cap" (I hate that incorrect term) of LTC vs BTC.

And I'll lay dollars to donuts that at their respective stages of development LTC is worth more than BTC was this far into their time existing. I'm sure you could sell 10,000 LTC right now and buy more than a couple of pizzas...

I'm not sure why you think this is a valid argument. Solidcoin was worth around half a dollar each once, but is merely a relic of the past now. IxCoin gained much quicker adoption than Bitcoin when it launched, but is laughable in adoption now. Why wouldn't LiteCoin suffer the same trajectory?

[smoothie]

The freemarket has chosen.  Look at the "market cap" (I hate that incorrect term) of LTC vs BTC.

You should probably stop thinking in the short term. Let's revisit this discussion in 1 year. Then we get a better take on where things are headed for LTC and BTC>

[Stephen Gornick]

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

There is more to come from Bitcoin in terms of capabilities (easier to use multi-party signatures, smart contracts, etc.) but Bitcoin will always have some shortcomings including requirements for anonymity, transaction fees, microtransactions (volume limits), security, reversability (with bitcoin, this is the confirmation time), etc.

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Ideal_Properties_of_Digital_Commodities

The solutions that could fill in the blanks where needed don't necessarily need to be alternate currencies.  Redeemable codes issued by the exchanges are one (relatively poor) approach.    A decentralized proof-of-work blockchain currency will likely have most of the same shortcomings as bitcoin.

Open Transactions (OT) is very well suited to be one of the technologies that becomes successful at filling in the gaps -- better privacy (blinding), instant transactions with no confirmation delay, low or no fees, microtransactions, transparency into an asset's "backing" -- once auditing module is developed, etc.)

Because OT doesn't offer the prospect of direct financial gain to speculators it doesn't get hardly anywhere near as much attention as it should,  There are some bitcoiners who are helping to develop, build, test, operate and improve OT technology.  I would bet that OT has more impact on cryptocurrencies in the next year to five than LTC ever will.

Now I'm not saying there's no place for LTC, and after GPU miners give up on BTC mining following the one-two punch from the block reward drop and the arrival of FPGA clusters and ASICs, hobbyist mining operators will probably switch to LTC mining -- at least those who aren't paying hardly anything for electricity.  But without an alt improving much over bitcoin other than how it can be mined by a wider subset of the general population then I don't see it following Bitcoin's path.  I see a lot of speculation hoping it will, but that's not the same thing.

[smoothie]

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

There is more to come from Bitcoin in terms of capabilities (easier to use multi-party signatures, smart contracts, etc.) but Bitcoin will always have some shortcomings including requirements for anonymity, transaction fees, microtransactions (volume limits), security, reversability (with bitcoin, this is the confirmation time), etc.

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Ideal_Properties_of_Digital_Commodities

The solutions that could fill in the blanks where needed don't necessarily need to be alternate currencies.  Redeemable codes issued by the exchanges are one (relatively poor) approach.    A decentralized proof-of-work blockchain currency will likely have most of the same shortcomings as bitcoin.

Open Transactions (OT) is very well suited to be one of the technologies that becomes successful at filling in the gaps -- better privacy (blinding), instant transactions with no confirmation delay, low or no fees, microtransactions, transparency into an asset's "backing" -- once auditing module is developed, etc.)

Because OT doesn't offer the prospect of direct financial gain to speculators it doesn't get hardly anywhere near as much attention as it should,  There are some bitcoiners who are helping to develop, build, test, operate and improve OT technology.  I would bet that OT has more impact on cryptocurrencies in the next year to five than LTC ever will.

Now I'm not saying there's no place for LTC, and after GPU miners give up on BTC mining following the one-two punch from the block reward drop and the arrival of FPGA clusters and ASICs, hobbyist mining operators will probably switch to LTC mining -- at least those who aren't paying hardly anything for electricity.  But without an alt improving much over bitcoin other than how it can be mined by a wider subset of the general population then I don't see it following Bitcoin's path.  I see a lot of speculation hoping it will, but that's not the same thing.

You bring up some good points.

+1

[markm]

Open Transactions (OT) is very well suited to be one of the technologies that becomes successful at filling in the gaps -- better privacy (blinding), instant transactions with no confirmation delay, low or no fees, microtransactions, transparency into an asset's "backing" -- once auditing module is developed, etc.)

Because OT doesn't offer the prospect of direct financial gain to speculators it doesn't get hardly anywhere near as much attention as it should,  There are some bitcoiners who are helping to develop, build, test, operate and improve OT technology.  I would bet that OT has more impact on cryptocurrencies in the next year to five than LTC ever will.

Actually, speculators have been doing very well using Open Transactions. Moving currencies from a blockchain format vulnerable to superior hashing power attacks to an Open Transactions server turns out to have provided all the benefits of limited amount issued currencies without the problems of trying to back coins minted by people who have no intention of backing them and without the problem of attacks from various zealots who enjoy attacking alternative currencies.

-MarkM-

EDIT: Just as an initial sketch toward putting some stats into HTML form see http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/inlitecoins.html

EDIT2: Same data expressed in terms of DeVCoins: http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/indevcoins.html

[Transisto]

Disclaimer: At the time writing this I own 0 LTC and only BTC.

Bitcoin's success is due to its agreement between many people that it is "money". More so free-market money.

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

As you can see I have all BTC at the moment. So I'm not cheering on LTC or NMC in any way shape or form, just giving the benefit of the doubt that the free markets could choose it too to be a medium of exchange.

Time will tell..

 

The point being ?

...
Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
...

Is that all ??
You provide no argument for BTC, NMC or LTC,   WHY oh WHY these posts ?

[goodlord666]

Love y'all!


The point being?     Love y'all!

[organofcorti]

Look at the "market cap" (I hate that incorrect term) ...

Me too. Try "Fiat cap." instead.

[smoothie]

Disclaimer: At the time writing this I own 0 LTC and only BTC.

Bitcoin's success is due to its agreement between many people that it is "money". More so free-market money.

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

As you can see I have all BTC at the moment. So I'm not cheering on LTC or NMC in any way shape or form, just giving the benefit of the doubt that the free markets could choose it too to be a medium of exchange.

Time will tell..

 

I left that part for you. Let's hear it
The point being ?

...
Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
...

Is that all ??
You provide no argument for BTC, NMC or LTC,   WHY oh WHY these posts ?

[tatsuchan]

Disclaimer: At the time writing this I own 0 LTC and only BTC.

Bitcoin's success is due to its agreement between many people that it is "money". More so free-market money.

Litecoin and maybe namecoin (given more adoption) can be just as successful in terms of it being free-market money.

This is key. The free markets must choose it to be money. Bitcoin has done this in a small way in terms of the overall world.

Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

As you can see I have all BTC at the moment. So I'm not cheering on LTC or NMC in any way shape or form, just giving the benefit of the doubt that the free markets could choose it too to be a medium of exchange.

Time will tell..

 

The point being ?

...
Don't be closed minded when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
...

Is that all ??
You provide no argument for BTC, NMC or LTC,   WHY oh WHY these posts ?

[muqali]

I don't know any numbers, but I'm curious how much alt currencies are used to launder BTC used in illicit activities? I mean I'm merged mining several and someone keeps trading BTC for them on the exchanges. I surely wouldn't give up BTC for anything other than maybe LTC, and even then it'd only be a small fraction of my total BTC.

Alt currencies, for me, are a I'll have what I mine, keep a small reserve in case it goes up in value, trade the rest for BTC.

[420]

Only thing is if LTC or NMC were more secure somehow or an INTERFACE were made that is more user friendly as that is thats holding back bitcoins

[muqali]

Only thing is if LTC or NMC were more secure somehow or an INTERFACE were made that is more user friendly as that is thats holding back bitcoins

While I don't know of an armory style client for LTC, their client mirrors the BTC reference client.

[bitcool]

Alt Chains may be the future

FTFY.

"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future"  

[dree12]

Alt Chains are not the future

FTFY.

"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future"  

FTFY.

Alt Chains refers to a group of cryptocurrencies excluding Bitcoin, while the future refers to a timeframe. Therefore, Alt Chains are distinct from the future.

[goxed]

I think free market may choose currencies with Proof of Work that can be done on CPU /GPU / FPGA based computers, because minor tweaking in the crypto algorithm will not entail new hardware (read ASIC) investments and would not make a whole generation of devices worthless.

[Stephen Gornick]

I think free market may choose currencies with Proof of Work that can be done on CPU /GPU / FPGA based computers, because minor tweaking in the crypto algorithm will not entail new hardware (read ASIC) investments and would not make a whole generation of devices worthless.

Remind me again why the free market that determines which currency to use gives one iota to whether or not a whole generation of other people's devices are made worthless?