Thank you for your genuine, level headed, and thorough response. It is posts such as this that I was hoping to receive instead of just getting flamed. You are setting a good example for fellow Litecoiners, and I appreciate the respectful tone in which your post was made.
You are very welcome! You deserve well thought out responses rather then the short quips and cherry picked info. Also im going to try to keep these responses shorter then before haha (I cant keep up with this thread, just way to much to go back and re-read).
I agree that security is very important, if everyone can't trust Litecoin then no one will use it. I did not mean to make it sound like I didn't think that is important, and I think perhaps I didn't word my statement properly to convey what I was trying to say. I feel that by focusing most of the development effort on improving security, that it makes it hard for the average crypto currency user to tell that Litecoin is actually being developed and improved upon. Unless they really keep up with the development updates on the Litecoin forums, they are never really going to notice or see these changes. If you open up the Litecoin client, apart from coin control, it looks about the same as it did 2 years ago featurewise. When people that are already involved in the crypto community and are looking to invest in something new, which is where I feel Litecoin has the biggest possibility to gain more users (that's how I found Litecoin,) they are going to see something that looks almost exactly similar to Bitcoin. That might not be so interesting to them as some of the newer innovative coins, and they may be less likely to invest or support Litecoin because of it.
I know that my personal opinion is that Litecoin is quite boring compared to all these new exciting projects. I feel like some of the newer projects have one-upped Bitcoin/Litecoin by adding different services and features that Bitcoin/Litecoin don't have, which makes them distinguishably different from Bitcoin. I feel like this adds perceived value or speculative value to the crypto currency, more so than a ton of security updates. If a Bitcoin clone came out today that was 100% focused on security, I would venture to say that it may not go over so well. However, if they added neat features then it adds to the perceived value, and people are more likely to invest or support the currency. Litecoin needs to alter their mixture of development efforts in my opinion to reflect this.
I also don't like the perception that people are prone to arriving at, that simply because a crypto currency is new and has new/different features than Bitcoin/Litecoin, that means it is filled with security issues. Sure, I'm certain there are some issues, but at the same time there are certainly still some vulnerabilities Bitcoin/Litecoin that will be brought to light sooner or later. Any program with as many lines of code as a crypto currency has, is likely vulnerable to security issues no matter how big the budget is and how talented the developers are. These security issues may or may not be known yet, and it may take a while for them to be uncovered, but I feel this is happening all the time. The most recent episode of the heart bleed SSL vulnerability comes to mind. As long as the developers of these new currencies are smart, careful, talented, security minded, and had a thorough security audit of their code done by a 3rd party, I don't really see the issue.
I believe it is unfair to say because something is new that it is full of security issues. It goes a long way in that most of these newer innovative currencies have not had huge security issues that would completely destroy the value of the currency. Sure, there have been some issues here and there, but nothing that would be a crippling blow in my opinion and nothing that other currencies (even Bitcoin/Litecoin) do not face themselves. I agree it is risky to jump into a new alternative currency that may have security issues, but the old saying goes "no risk no reward." Those that take the risk by adopting these currencies early might end up coming out very well (example: Nxt IPO coins).
I'll just number the paragraphs to make this easier (I hope lol)
1. Ok I might have misunderstood you. This makes more sense for what you were trying to convey. I can't really tell you exactly what the devs do, but I know security is a large part as well as im sure optimization of the code. As you know, both LTC and BTC devs work close together and making even small changes to one or the other could have significant impacts on the network (Gavin at some point stated something like this). The newer features you were trying to promote were so substantial that some of them would have required a hard fork, and others might have been scary to implement without significant testing and review. I also still consider a lot of the "innovations" gimmicks
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2. I agree with you on this point! But I think the "tried and true" method also applies here meaning the age of both coins and trust outweigh the need for gimmicks (or some that really do offer true innovation). Also remember, the real target audience is NOT people in the communities, but regular people. And regular people tend to gravitate towards safe and security (unless they have money to risk like VC's
).
3. On the topic of other coins security, I would agree. The assumption comes from more people and well known devs are participating to the BTC/LTC codebase, therefore there is more trust. Sure stuff can happen, but the chances are smaller with a larger group (I would also like to think that the more talented devs gravitate towards4 the more well known coins as well, but this is just a personal opinion).
4. I didn't claim that newer coins were more susceptible at all (in regards to you saying I said that newer coins have security issues, unless I misunderstood what you were saying).
My point with my comment was not that other coins security was bad, it was just that more time, effort, and dedication are put into security with BTC/LTC now.
I see what you are saying in terms of different types of investors, however I think you are over-generalizing the different types of crypto investors. I would say there are at least four types of investors:
1. Long term risk adverse investors (Bitcoin/Litecoin)
2. Long term risk prone investors (DCorps/Cryptocoin 2.0s/Etc.)
3. Short term investors (pump and dumpers, but don't forget day traders as well)
4. Savvy investors whom spread the risk around inbetween Bitcoin/Litecoin and DCorps/Cryptocoin 2.0s/Etc.
This is a matter of opinion, but I feel that you have the bolded statement backwards. I currently look at Bitcoin/Litecoin as a short term investment, and the newer currencies as a long term investment. Many Bitcoiners will admit that some of these newer currencies have more bells and whistles than Bitcoin, and the only thing keeping Bitcoin on top is the network effect and perhaps the venture capital that is flowing in (which is not really the case for Litecoin when it comes to VCs.) I feel like as the public finds out about crypto currencies and educates themselves about them, the network effect will slowly lose its stranglehold on the industry, and users will look for currencies that have improved upon Bitcoin greatly. Bitcoin itself is not invulnerable to being dethroned, and I feel like Litecoin is in the same boat. If Bitcoin doesn't continue to improve itself and adapt, it may very well find itself as the #2 crypto someday. Luckily they have one thing going for them that Litecoin doesn't, in that there are several Bitcoin 2.0 protocols being built on top of Bitcoin, which could support its value in this case.
I did overgeneralize a bit, I should have said two "main" types, then a mix between the two in various ways. But your list looks good to me.
Interesting...you see LTC and BTC as short term investments and others as long term? This seems kind of backwards....but I can understand in a way (this would be the number 4 of your above im guessing?).
As for the rest of your statements, lets agree to disagree at this point. I dont think anything I can say to you or vice versa can change each others minds.
Sure all that stuff could happen, but I personally dont see it happening.
There are many other coins with strong communities, I don't really see this as an argument for Litecoin. I would venture to say that some of the newer communities are stronger in terms of the amount of developers involved. For example, it is rumored that Ethereum literally attracted something like 500 developers almost over night, and there are a ton of projects in the works. I think a community full of developers (like Bitcoin) is more important than a community of marketers and promoters. I can't believe I'm quoting this, but in the Field Of Dreams the saying goes, "if you build it they will come". I like this line of thinking when it comes to cryptos. Although they might not be widely adopted right when they come out, I think eventually if there is added substance and value on top of Bitcoin/Litecoin, that it is only a matter of time before the crypto community comes. (wow.. that totally didn't sound right.. Cheesy)
I also feel like whether an alternative coin is directly helping with Bitcoin development or not, everyone is helping with Bitcoin development by default (assuming their projects are open source.) I look at alternative crypto currencies as a playground for developers to try out new things and ideas, and if something is truly innovative, then Bitcoin now has a road map as to how to integrate this into Bitcoin by looking over the code. The same could be said about Litecoin, but the problem with that is the development team is extremely small when compared to Bitcoin's development team. Furthermore, Litecoin's development team's budget is quite small in comparison to Bitcoin, and they would likely need a bigger team to make some of these changes. This is one thing that annoyed me about Litecoin is that there are some people sitting on huge piles of coins (no different from Bitcoin or any other coin for that matter), that are not contributing to the development fund or involved with the community. I know you are not one of those people, so don't take that the wrong way.
1. There is also core infrastructure being build for LTC, such as Electrum and the new multi coin wallet Hive. For Litecoin, right now we need to spread mass adoption with the general public, so these tool will help a tremendous amount. (and lol yes that didnt sound right
).
2. I agree, new alts (even the pumps and dumps) do have their place in the entire eco system! But thats a much longer thread for me lol. And if BTC ever adopted anything, im pretty sure LTC will do the same as well. And yes I know that there are huge whales that contribute nothing to help. With that said, I have hinted at this before, but I actually own very little LTC or crypto in general. I do what I do because I believe in the cause! (and no im not kidding, I really dont have that much).
Definitely, I think every crypto is vulnerable to becoming irrelevant. This is the wild west, things are developing very quickly, and anything can certainly happen in the future. One month in the crypto world is like 1 year in most industries. I am shocked at how quickly things are coming along, it is frankly very hard to keep track of everything although I do my best.
Agreed and understood, but I still believe that the phase BTC and LTC are in (general population adoption) is the most critical at this point
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1. As of now there are also 100s of different block chains as a "back up". This might of been more correct 2 years ago, but now there are many back ups that arent simply copy and paste coins. So, I don't see this as an argument for specifically Litecoin.. it is more of an argument for alternative crypto currencies in general.
2. I'd like to make the same point here as I did in #1, as there are a lot of currencies that didn't copy and paste available or in development today. Again, I feel like this statement might of been more correct 1 to 2 years ago (and still applies today to the pump and dumpers) when it was mostly copy and paste coins being released. Today it is very different. There are so many cryptos that did not copy and paste, that I will probably never use or learn about them all. It is the sad reality, but I think that is a good problem to have. The alternative currency movement has come a long ways in the past 1 to 2 years, and people are moving more from pump and dump coins to coins that are actually innovative. Some more than others, but nonetheless I feel it is a step in the right direction.
3. I agree with you.
4. I agree Litecoin had a fair launch, but I no longer consider this a feature. As stated in the OP, this is just common sense. During the flurry of copy and paste coins I think this point was hammered home to developers and now we are seeing much more fair releases of coins. I haven't brought up this argument before, but it is something I've been thinking about.. I would venture to say that some of the newer cryptos being fairly released today will have a much better distribution than Bitcoin/Litecoin due to the fact that the community has grown a lot over the years. There are more people around that are more likely to go mine a new coin than there was 2-3 years ago. I feel like we've yet to see the most fairly released currency, as it will come well after cryptos are more widely adopted for this reason. I will admit that when you look at Litecoin's distribution compared to Bitcoin, you guys look like saints. In Bitcoin, there is far too large of a percentage of available coins in a small percentage of people's pockets.
5. I don't buy the "trusted brand" argument for making Litecoin a good long term investment. As you can tell, I think even Bitcoin is prone to irrelevancy and they are the most trusted out of all the cryptos. You have a point about the volume of Litecoin, and I agree that is definitely a good thing it has going for it. I think this dynamic is likely to change overtime though as the newer most innovative coins separate themselves from the rest, and it is likely that one or two of those coins will also be used for arbitrage (they are already to a smaller extent.) High volume is a good thing for cryptos as it allows people to sell and buy without affecting the price too horribly, so I will concede a point to you here. I just think that it is very possible that could change down the road. I'm pretty sure people are programming bots for just about every crypto by the way, as some of the lesser used cryptos will have the most opportunity due to there being more competition with other bots in Bitcoin/Litecoin. For example, if you picked a lesser known coin with decent volume, it makes sense to me that this could be more profitable due to the lack of competition. This is why I never got into day trading... its hard to compete with bots haha, those things pissed me off when they'd always come in and instantly outbid or underbid me by one Satoshi. Lips sealed
1. Correct there are a ton of other blockchains, but not many with the seniority or dare I say security that BTC and LTC have (I should mention, that im also sure people have reviewed the code over the years for vulnerabilities, so with that assumption BTC and LTC should be more secure).
2. While I dont follow all the alts, it still "feels" like more pump and dumps are released then original code bases. But with that said, there are more original stuff coming out than before. So half and half agree and disagree lol.
3. Good
4. I agree
5. I agree as well lol, except I still believe LTC is a more trusted brand. You can't agree to number 3 without agreeing about this point as well
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OMG im so sorry but I dont have it in me to respond to the rest right now lol. So much work to do so little time. But im glad we can come to a consensus with a number of points and happily agree to disagree on others. Regardless of whatever bad blood you and some other members you may have, you are always welcome to come back to the community and participate. I hopefully will have more time tomorrow to check out the rest of the post
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