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Topic: Say bye to ripple, prepare to say bye to litecoin - page 2. (Read 7286 times)

sr. member
Activity: 269
Merit: 250

Thanks for your argumentation Smiley

What about the network effect? Meaning the value of the network goes up with the amount of participants?

Litecoin has faster transactions and if this alone is sufficiently important to a sufficiently large number of people then indeed it will succeed. But all those people look also at where can I use it? And then Litecoin is far inferior to bitcoin, even with faster transactions. So my argument is, for an altcoin to get those sufficient amount of people, it needs to offer many more advantages over the competitor. Comparable to facebook, windows, or ebay, the more amount of users, the more valuable it becomes and even with serious disadvantages over a new product/service, people will still chose for that due to the network effect.

One important advantage may build a niche market, but does not stand a chance to take over the far larger network. Many important advantages however do stand a chance to take over a much larger network.   

I don't hold any altcoins because of reasons mentioned. However, I was also resistent to bitcoin and it took time for me to see the truth in the argumentations. I might miss something in the altcoins too, hence this discussion.


My view is that it is not the *number* of advantages that something offers, but the *value* of the advantage(s) that it offers. That is why I was somewhat dismissive of the "7 advantages" theory.

Network effect is absolutely critical to adoption. It is probably the most important advantage, *most* of the time. However there are exceptions, and empires with massive network effects have fallen in the past. Myspace (or Bebo or Friendster) had a much stronger network effect than facebook (when it first started) in terms of sheer numbers, but facebook was "cooler", dominated by students, and had a great user interface (very clean).

Speed of transactions is very important to the payments industry. 6 confirmations from the bitcoin network is too slow for many applications. It works fine for remittance and ecommerce, but doesn't really work at all for face-to-face retail. Do you want to stand around waiting for 10 minutes for your cup of coffee to be authorised?

Litecoin is probably still too slow for many of the applications that near-realtime transactions would open up. But it's faster than Bitcoin. And it has a decent level of network effect - there are plenty of exchanges between litecoin and bitcoin etc., and plenty of miners, so in my opinion it has a decent shot at hanging around for quite a while (if not overtaking Bitcoin).
sr. member
Activity: 269
Merit: 250

Indeed. If Litecoin is to prevail over Bitcoin because of its 2.5m block time then Litecoin will itself be toast because Feathercoin and Chinacoin are both much faster than that. One or both of those would prevail instead.


My understanding was that feathercoin is not inherently any faster than litecoin. In fact bushstar (the feathercoin creator?) said so himself:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178286.680

I'm pretty sure Chinacoin is just another litecoin knock-off.
sr. member
Activity: 269
Merit: 250
Litecoin has value over and above bitcoin because transfers are faster. In fact, there isn't really a reason for bitcoin to exist (sacrilege I know) once litecoin becomes mainstream, because it's the same but slower.

Feathercoin, CHNCoin etc offer no benefit over litecoin, however...

Translation: "I have more Litecoins than Bitcoins."
LOL  Cheesy

True indeed - but that's *because* of the argument above (rather than the other way around). I also have a bunch of feathercoins (more than litecoins), but don't really see what value they add over litecoins
sr. member
Activity: 1078
Merit: 254
I think that Ripple is here to stay and it has a bright future. Though probably XRP is a bit overpriced currently, but they don't claim it to be a store of value anyway, they say it is just the means to prevent transaction spam, so its price doesn't really mean anything (I expect it to fluctuate a lot due to giveaways, media attention, technical problems, etc).

XRP is as "overpriced" as BTC was in early 2011 when it went to almost dollar parity.

Personally I didn't invest in ripple and i heard about it right when it came out (sorry about that today) cause i didn't believe in it. I see it as a Hawala network gone digital.It doesn't grant the financial freedom bit coin does (i.e. protection from inflation, ease of movement without 3rd parties/payment system, decentralized) to me it looks like any other P2P payment system that already exists, except they claim anyone can become a gateway, they claim it will be open source, and they put it in pretty packaging right when bit coin proved itself, and somehow people confused ripple for a crypto-currency and not a payment processor.

But if we look at the "scoreboard" I'm out of my mind cause it was a big mistake not to invest, so I'm gonna eat my hat like my dad did after bit coin made it and ask you why did you invest in ripple? why do you think its gonna work out? do you believe in the philosophy behind it? do you think its still gonna go up?
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1006
100 satoshis -> ISO code
I have to admit though that the market disagrees with me. Litecoin is being valued by the market. It's valued around 1/20th of bitcoin. All things being equal this will probably continue in the future.

I don't see the practical use yet though. Maybe Litecoin will be needed for smaller transactions? (if bitcoin indeed allows smaller transactions less and less over time)

I think I get how the market values Litecoin.

BTC fx rate / block frequency ratio / transactions per day ratio

So,  approximately: LTC fx rate = $110 / (10 / 2.5) / (60,000 / 8,000) = $3.67

The block frequency ratio covers the inflation aspect, and the transaction ratio covers the measure of utility. Ideally, block reward transactions should be excluded from the transaction ratio.

But I am surprised. Where are most of the thousands of LTC transactions per day coming from?
http://ltc.block-explorer.com/charts
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
wait for mtgox
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
I have to admit though that the market disagrees with me. Litecoin is being valued by the market. It's valued around 1/20th of bitcoin. All things being equal this will probably continue in the future.

I don't see the practical use yet though. Maybe Litecoin will be needed for smaller transactions? (if bitcoin indeed allows smaller transactions less and less over time)

It probably will stay efficient to run on retail hardware for a long time, transaction confirmation time isn't really relevant unless it is magnitudes shorter.
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
This bull will try to shake you off. Hold tight!
I have to admit though that the market disagrees with me. Litecoin is being valued by the market. It's valued around 1/20th of bitcoin. All things being equal this will probably continue in the future.

I don't see the practical use yet though. Maybe Litecoin will be needed for smaller transactions? (if bitcoin indeed allows smaller transactions less and less over time)
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Litecoin has value over and above bitcoin because transfers are faster. In fact, there isn't really a reason for bitcoin to exist (sacrilege I know) once litecoin becomes mainstream, because it's the same but slower.

Feathercoin, CHNCoin etc offer no benefit over litecoin, however...

Translation: "I have more Litecoins than Bitcoins."
LOL  Cheesy

Indeed. If Litecoin is to prevail over Bitcoin because of its 2.5m block time then Litecoin will itself be toast because Feathercoin and Chinacoin are both much faster than that. One or both of those would prevail instead.



The reason Litecoin survives is scrypt. But it also opens it up to possibility of botnet attack, at least for now.
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
This bull will try to shake you off. Hold tight!

Debt, lending, creating out of thin air? Don't deal with those gateways. The gateway dividendrippler.com backs all IOUs with specie BTC/LTC/TRC 1:1 ratio. No BTC are created. While not supported yet, we can easily prove we control all BTC/LTC/TRC and the amount of IOUs are public information. It would be 1:1 ratio at all times.


Why does one need ripple?

What if you trust Bitstamp or DividendRippler more than the guy paying you in BTC? No need to wait for confirms, as all IOUs have gone through the process of confirmation.

Think how exchanges work: Bitstamp, MtGox, Btc-e, etc.. All have their own trading software, their own matching algos, and their own IOU system in place. All have their own rules for depositing and withdrawing. Little redundant, dont you think? Why not have a decentralized system that everyone can use? Now you only need a gateway to specialize in accepting and redeeming IOUs.

I don't understand. I'm sorry.

That's another problem of ripple: complicated.

Please explain like I am a 5 year old.

It appears you never really knew Ripple or Litecoin, and you wanted to say bye without even meeting them?


That is true. I don't invest energy into something where the first rationale is weak already. I debunked the first rationale in my opening post and if someone can show me that I am wrong I am thankful and motivated to research more.

I suspect for many people the first rationale to get started into ripple or litecoin is the idea to make a similar fortune as the first adopters of bitcoin. This however will not work if the masses do not join. And I don't think they will because of the arguments I gave in my opening post.
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1006
100 satoshis -> ISO code
Litecoin has value over and above bitcoin because transfers are faster. In fact, there isn't really a reason for bitcoin to exist (sacrilege I know) once litecoin becomes mainstream, because it's the same but slower.

Feathercoin, CHNCoin etc offer no benefit over litecoin, however...

Translation: "I have more Litecoins than Bitcoins."
LOL  Cheesy

Indeed. If Litecoin is to prevail over Bitcoin because of its 2.5m block time then Litecoin will itself be toast because Feathercoin and Chinacoin are both much faster than that. One or both of those would prevail instead.

Edit: Chinacoin at least with its 1 min blocks
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
This bull will try to shake you off. Hold tight!
The market value of ripples is crashing and for good reason I believe.

It's the value of Bitcoin that is crashing.
Last week 20,000 xrp could buy 1 bitcoin, now you need less than 10,000 - the value of xrp has doubled against bitcoin.
You need to swap the axes.

(NB - I think these prices are completely irrational  - 7000 people trading their gifted xrp ignoring the other 99.7billion yet to be released to the public).

But Ripple isn't worthless.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

Why is ripple not worthless?

Why has it value?

What does it allow me to do?
legendary
Activity: 2632
Merit: 1023
My opinion on Ripple is that it's not needed. When you lend bitcoins or fiat, you are also creating debt out of thin air, and when the debt is repaid, it vanishes. Sure a system that allows you to lend/borrow bitcoins based on reputation might have it's use but such system does not need it's own kind of currency like ripple. The market value of ripples is crashing and for good reason I believe. Litecoin shares the same faith in my opinion. I remember a book I read at the time from Sony or Philips and there the mantra is, a new technology needs to have at least 7 big innovations for it to have a chance to succeed. Bitcoin has that over fiat and gold, Litecoin does not have that over bitcoin. Litecoin is a copycat with very few innovations over bitcoin. In a network environment where the value comes from the amount of participants, copycats do not have a chance.

From an investor's perspective the altcoins are like low end real estate. In a real estate boom it goes up even more than quality real estate, but it loses much more value when the inevitable crash comes. And chances are that it will never recover but will be bulldozered down, as no one needs it anymore. Whereas the quality real estate, although highly undervalued, will continue to stand as there continues to be a need for it. I might be totally wrong so counterarguments are very welcome.


Ps: Also note that the analogy made for litecoin that it is silver versus bitcoin gold is not valid. When gold was money, there was not enough of it, so silver was also used as money. There are enough bitcoins to serve the whole world.

Short on detail, eg scrypt versus sha, coin number, confirmation time.

It like the navier stokes equation, the beginning parameters can have an entirely different outcome
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
This bull will try to shake you off. Hold tight!
My opinion on Ripple is that it's not needed. When you lend bitcoins or fiat, you are also creating debt out of thin air, and when the debt is repaid, it vanishes. Sure a system that allows you to lend/borrow bitcoins based on reputation might have it's use but such system does not need it's own kind of currency like ripple. The market value of ripples is crashing and for good reason I believe. Litecoin shares the same faith in my opinion. I remember a book I read at the time from Sony or Philips and there the mantra is, a new technology needs to have at least 7 big innovations for it to have a chance to succeed. Bitcoin has that over fiat and gold, Litecoin does not have that over bitcoin. Litecoin is a copycat with very few innovations over bitcoin. In a network environment where the value comes from the amount of participants, copycats do not have a chance.

From an investor's perspective the altcoins are like low end real estate. In a real estate boom it goes up even more than quality real estate, but it loses much more value when the inevitable crash comes. And chances are that it will never recover but will be bulldozered down, as no one needs it anymore. Whereas the quality real estate, although highly undervalued, will continue to stand as there continues to be a need for it. I might be totally wrong so counterarguments are very welcome.


Ps: Also note that the analogy made for litecoin that it is silver versus bitcoin gold is not valid. When gold was money, there was not enough of it, so silver was also used as money. There are enough bitcoins to serve the whole world.

Litecoin has value over and above bitcoin because transfers are faster. In fact, there isn't really a reason for bitcoin to exist (sacrilege I know) once litecoin becomes mainstream, because it's the same but slower.

Feathercoin, CHNCoin etc offer no benefit over litecoin, however...

Did you even read my post? Please try to refute the argument.

I did read your post. I don't know about ripple, but in relation to altcoins I agree with your point in general, but wanted to make the point that actually some altcoins have advantages over bitcoin. I don't want to refute the argument in general that some altcoins won't last, just around those altcoins that have some real-world advantage (not just mining advantage) over bitcoin. As for reading a book and needing 7 advantages... not really (just because sony or some other company says it is so, doesn't make it true - betamax? minidisc?).

One important advantage is enough for something to survive, but it has to be sufficiently important to a sufficiently large number of people. I would argue that speed of confirmations may well be such an advantage, not least because it also has a knock-on effect on security (http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1cssqr/the_math_why_litecoin_is_more_secure_than_bitcoin/ ). Is litecoin "faster enough" to survive? Maybe not, but then maybe there will be another altcoin that will take over. Litecoin already has quite a number of participants but time will tell whether it keeps them.

If you genuinely believe it's dead, put your money where your mouth is - sell it to destruct (or me) Smiley

Thanks for your argumentation Smiley

What about the network effect? Meaning the value of the network goes up with the amount of participants?

Litecoin has faster transactions and if this alone is sufficiently important to a sufficiently large number of people then indeed it will succeed. But all those people look also at where can I use it? And then Litecoin is far inferior to bitcoin, even with faster transactions. So my argument is, for an altcoin to get those sufficient amount of people, it needs to offer many more advantages over the competitor. Comparable to facebook, windows, or ebay, the more amount of users, the more valuable it becomes and even with serious disadvantages over a new product/service, people will still chose for that due to the network effect.

One important advantage may build a niche market, but does not stand a chance to take over the far larger network. Many important advantages however do stand a chance to take over a much larger network.   

I don't hold any altcoins because of reasons mentioned. However, I was also resistent to bitcoin and it took time for me to see the truth in the argumentations. I might miss something in the altcoins too, hence this discussion.
sr. member
Activity: 269
Merit: 250
My opinion on Ripple is that it's not needed. When you lend bitcoins or fiat, you are also creating debt out of thin air, and when the debt is repaid, it vanishes. Sure a system that allows you to lend/borrow bitcoins based on reputation might have it's use but such system does not need it's own kind of currency like ripple. The market value of ripples is crashing and for good reason I believe. Litecoin shares the same faith in my opinion. I remember a book I read at the time from Sony or Philips and there the mantra is, a new technology needs to have at least 7 big innovations for it to have a chance to succeed. Bitcoin has that over fiat and gold, Litecoin does not have that over bitcoin. Litecoin is a copycat with very few innovations over bitcoin. In a network environment where the value comes from the amount of participants, copycats do not have a chance.

From an investor's perspective the altcoins are like low end real estate. In a real estate boom it goes up even more than quality real estate, but it loses much more value when the inevitable crash comes. And chances are that it will never recover but will be bulldozered down, as no one needs it anymore. Whereas the quality real estate, although highly undervalued, will continue to stand as there continues to be a need for it. I might be totally wrong so counterarguments are very welcome.


Ps: Also note that the analogy made for litecoin that it is silver versus bitcoin gold is not valid. When gold was money, there was not enough of it, so silver was also used as money. There are enough bitcoins to serve the whole world.

Litecoin has value over and above bitcoin because transfers are faster. In fact, there isn't really a reason for bitcoin to exist (sacrilege I know) once litecoin becomes mainstream, because it's the same but slower.

Feathercoin, CHNCoin etc offer no benefit over litecoin, however...

Did you even read my post? Please try to refute the argument.

I did read your post. I don't know about ripple, but in relation to altcoins I agree with your point in general, but wanted to make the point that actually some altcoins have advantages over bitcoin. I don't want to refute the argument in general that some altcoins won't last, just around those altcoins that have some real-world advantage (not just mining advantage) over bitcoin. As for reading a book and needing 7 advantages... not really (just because sony or some other company says it is so, doesn't make it true - betamax? minidisc?).

One important advantage is enough for something to survive, but it has to be sufficiently important to a sufficiently large number of people. I would argue that speed of confirmations may well be such an advantage, not least because it also has a knock-on effect on security (http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1cssqr/the_math_why_litecoin_is_more_secure_than_bitcoin/ ). Is litecoin "faster enough" to survive? Maybe not, but then maybe there will be another altcoin that will take over. Litecoin already has quite a number of participants but time will tell whether it keeps them.

If you genuinely believe it's dead, put your money where your mouth is - sell it to destruct (or me) Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 1232
Merit: 250
Alexander KOSTIN | GoldMint
Yes LTC is dead.. Sell it to me now for $1 each.  Roll Eyes
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
Ripple is a joke, please do not compare it to Litecoin, it really just makes you look clueless: http://ripplescam.org/

Litecoin provides real value and will ride BTC all they way to the top.

Ripple will be gone in a year or two. Its a bad idea that nobody needs.



What a bunch of crap.
hero member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 500
Ripple is a joke, please do not compare it to Litecoin, it really just makes you look clueless: http://ripplescam.org/

Litecoin provides real value and will ride BTC all they way to the top.

Ripple will be gone in a year or two. Its a bad idea that nobody needs.

full member
Activity: 205
Merit: 100
Regarding ripple, I'm not a fan of large scale handouts and IOUs.  Sounds like the US government to me.
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
I told you XRP gonna take off.

1 BTC is currently worth between 8750 and 5000 XRP. No end in sight....

Not today

Hopefully Wink
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