Topic: Nurturing AlternaCoins (Read 4554 times)

+1

It would be handy to isolate various coin-specific constants used in the code, such as the symbol displayed, the icon(s) displayed, the word used as label to label that coin distinct from other coins, all the stuff users see, as well as the simple things that change from coin to coin such as genesis block, genesis block hash, all the things multicoin isolated into a config file.

It would be much easier to contribute patches back then because the code being patched would be much more up to date.

-MarkM-

Awesome. LTC clearly makes BTC strong.

Disclaimer I have healthy investments in both.

I've sent a few patches upstream. Well, here's one more:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/1536

Litecoin was attacked with dust spam where the attacker would send a transaction with thousands of outputs of a satoshi each. Yet, they only get charged the base fee. This fixes it by making the fee grow linearly with number of dust spam.

Gavin,

This problem (with out-dated bitcoin code running on alternative chains) is exactly why I have been advocating for so long to build new user currencies on top of bitcoin, much like HTTP is built on top of TCP/IP.

Over and over again we see that once a person truly grasps what bitcoin is and the magnitude of what it could be, they inevitably want to try their hand at making a "better bitcoin".

Rather than fight this instinct, I believe we should embrace it. Once we have tools which users can use to build their own alt-coins on top of bitcoin with no programming required (as I have written about extensively), we will see the explosion in adoption that has always seemed just around the corner.

Because of the insensate network effect no AlternaCoin stands a chance against bitcoin - unless it offers valuable additional features.

hint: check out my signature  

Alterna-coins are a natural outgrowth of bitcoin introducing a new idea into the ideasphere; the fact that it is open source makes cloning the idea trivial.  Alterna-coins were always inevitable.

If someone can come up with a better bitcoin than bitcoin -- that's great!  Humanity benefits from the competition.

Speaking as a developer, though, contributing patches back upstream would be nice

I prefer to compare crypto-currencies to chemical elements we discover.
We first discovered Bitcoin. We studied its properties, figured out it was stable and found a good number of ways we could use it in our lives. Some of us said "Bitcoin works for me, I will use it and I don't need anything else", while others kept searching for new elements.

As time went by, through the series of experiments (Tenebrix, GeistGeld, Fairbrix, Liquidcoin) which were all unstable isotopes and decayed quickly, we then discovered Litecoin. It turned out to be quite stable even though it wasn't obvious at a time. We now know that it has certain characteristics different from Bitcoin that might make a difference in the future. Thus some of us decided to use it as well.

I believe in the future there will still be search for new elements, there will still be experiments and I'm sure there will be new stable elements we haven't even thought of yet!

Considering 4x block rate and 1mb block size limit Litecoin will be capable of handling 4x more transactions than Bitcoin before hard fork is required. With current Bitcoin blocks approaching 256kb it can only grow 4x before it would hit that limit.

It's better to spend time on scalability of Bitcoin than attacking other chains.
At some point Litecoin might serve as a backup chain while Bitcoin will be choking on 1mb 10min blocks.

EDIT: this post isn't meant to ignite Bitcoin/Litecoin flame war and is not directed at anyone personally.
Just an observation of facts about two chains that might make a difference in the future.

Yes, but your forgetting that when going from a communist or socialist state to a capitalist free market society, it is the state that is initially in possession of all wealth- thus it is necessary to redistribute the wealth AWAY from the centralized state and disburse it private individuals. 

Redistribution of wealth works in many different ways depending on the situation. In capitalist societies for example, an estate tax is a form of redistribution of wealth as it takes (hopefully a large) chunk of a dead persons estate as taxes, and the government then spends that money elsewhere  (hopefully on things like education).
Rich people like to avoid the estate tax and thus frequently donate away most of their wealth prior to their death, which is also a form of redistribution. Grandkids hate it, but it's a pretty fantastic mechanism when you think about it.

"I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society. "

That is the definition of communism or socialism.  Capitalism you get to keep your labor or returns of capital and pay taxes as a choice mainly for protection or to enforce law.

"Since the aforementioned reasons mean Litecoin has no future potential, it effectively functions as a pyramid scheme, rewarding those who get in sooner at the expense of those who adopt it just before it finally fails (and are left with nothing). This is not the case for Bitcoin, since it has significant potential to become a long-term currency and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it. "

Although probably a correct statement, but they think it will last forever thus not a ponzi scheme.  Same can be said about BTC regarding blockchain size.

Ah, the Bitcoin Penis Analogy. I was waiting for that. Finally I can print bumper stickers that say "Bitcoin: mine it til it Hertz!". Or "My blockchain is longer than yours". Or "Is that a Bitcoin Wallet USB key in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?".

Sorry about OT. It just had to be said.

But Luke, it doesn't really matter if Litecoin is a slightly tweaked copy of Bitcoin. No one criticizes small countries for printing their own currencies even when there are already other currencies out there. No one complains when this countries small currency isn't as counterfeit proof as the American Dollar (or what-have-you). Bitcoin and Litecoin are sovereign unto themselves as the group of people who believe/invest in them.

As for growth paralyzing, let me use an analogy that I suspect may one day come back to haunt me but I think a fair number of adults will understand:

The Penis.

A large number of men will tell you they worry about size, and by this they generally mean length. It's all about the Inches, the CM, "how long is the dong".

But a vast number of women will tell you it's about the girth- not the length. And indeed longer isn't always better- with longer sometimes just being too long if not wide enough.

How does this relate to Bitcoin/Litecoin? Well bitcoin is big as in long (hashing power), (and about to get a whole lot bigger/longer with ASIC) but it's not necessarily big as in wide (girth). If litecoin can be wide (IE: wide user base) even if it's not so long (hashing power) and this hashing power doesn't grow so fast, it still has a good chance of being a 'perfect fit'.

So, hopefully this makes a nice analogy without getting deleted as inappropriate.

bro you must have missed the last rally to $32/btc and back to $2?

LOL that's why!

It's called SPECULATION. Google it.

No, Bitcoin did not have a preexisting currency with all the same features to compete with. Nor does Bitcoin have the growth-paralyzing proof-of-work known as scrypt.

What basis is there to expect that will happen? (I already presented my case for why Litecoin is almost guaranteed to fail)

I love this quote: "This is not the case for Bitcoin, since it has significant potential to become a long-term currency and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

LOL

See my statement is hypothetical and in the future which neither of us know. So same as the statement that litecoin is a scam and will fail is a future statement which has not transpired to date.

Perhaps you know the future better than the rest of us. You appear to know what will happen or will not happen.

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

Translation of the Red: "I am heavily invested in bitcoins thus any other alternative to bitcoin as a digital currency is a "scam"".

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...