Ill give you the answer right here...
Because Bitcoins are expensive for most people, lets face it, when someone invests or buys something like this, they do not want to have a balance of 0.250304 etc... they want to have whole numbers... why? its just the way it is, we dont want to have a dollar bill that actually reqads .0354 dollars.. we want whole numbers.. I know it sounds stupid, but studies and common sense say thats what we like to see and hold.
Therefore, Litecoins provide most people who cant afford, lets say 50 or 100 Bitcoins, but they can afford 50 or 100 Litecoins, the silver to Bitcoins gold... People can have a prettier whole number to hold onto with Litecoins.
Topic: Why is litecoin hyped so much when it doesn't add any value over bitcoin? - page 6. (Read 4555 times)
June 24, 2013, 09:14:50 PM
June 24, 2013, 09:12:57 PM
I believe Satoshi set the block target time to 10 minutes for a very good reason.
June 24, 2013, 09:12:25 PM
Why wait an hour then? You are accepting less security just starting accepting Bitcoin with 2 confirmations. Tada 66% faster.
I've recently (in the past few days) seen BTC often have over 40 minutes between blocks. LTC rarely approaches 10 minutes. If that's not an advantage, I don't know what is.
So using your numbers 2 blocks of Bitcoin = ~80 minutes max (95% of time) and 8 blocks of LTC is ~80 minutes (95% of time). Why are you assumming security in Bitcoin for X blocks = X blocks for Litecoin given the second network is much smaller, and more vulnerable to low cost botnet attack. You should be waiting significantly more blocks and if you aren't you are simply holding them to unequal standards "look I don't know why people buy expensive safes, that expensive safe only has 1 lock but my cardboard box has TWO locks and it is faster to unlock".
There is no free lunch. BTC & LTC blocks are relatively small now however in time they will be much larger and when they are the propogation delay will be larger a higher % of hashpower/security will be lost due to orphans. The orphan rate for LTC will grow significantly higher, significantly faster given the same transaction volume.
What I'm considering is it's usability as a currency. Obviously if you're making a large transaction, you want to wait a significant amount of time/confirmations. However, if, say, you want to go buy coffee with bitcoins and your local coffee shop, if I were the merchant I would need to wait at least till that transaction had been included in a block. Since the amount used will be pretty small, (like 1-5$) numerous confirmations would generally not be necessary. But if the blocks are at times 40+ minutes apart, who's going to wait that long just to get their coffee? Not me!
June 24, 2013, 09:01:55 PM
Why wait an hour then? You are accepting less security just starting accepting Bitcoin with 2 confirmations. Tada 66% faster.
I've recently (in the past few days) seen BTC often have over 40 minutes between blocks. LTC rarely approaches 10 minutes. If that's not an advantage, I don't know what is.
So using your numbers 2 blocks of Bitcoin = ~80 minutes max (95% of time) and 8 blocks of LTC is ~80 minutes (95% of time). Why are you assumming security in Bitcoin for X blocks = X blocks for Litecoin given the second network is much smaller, and more vulnerable to low cost botnet attack. You should be waiting significantly more blocks and if you aren't you are simply holding them to unequal standards "look I don't know why people buy expensive safes, that expensive safe only has 1 lock but my cardboard box has TWO locks and it is faster to unlock".
There is no free lunch. BTC & LTC blocks are relatively small now however in time they will be much larger and when they are the propogation delay will be larger a higher % of hashpower/security will be lost due to orphans. The orphan rate for LTC will grow significantly higher, significantly faster given the same transaction volume.
June 24, 2013, 09:01:29 PM
The biggest downside of BTC that I see is ASICs.
June 24, 2013, 08:57:46 PM
Why wait an hour then? You are accepting less security just starting accepting Bitcoin with 2 confirmations. Tada 66% faster.
I've recently (in the past few days) seen BTC often have over 40 minutes between blocks. LTC rarely approaches 10 minutes. If that's not an advantage, I don't know what is.
June 24, 2013, 08:53:58 PM
Litecoin is different from bitcoin in following ways, however none of them is particularly useful and on the contrary are only less worthy.
84 million vs 21 millions: since bitcoin is divisible upto atleast 9 decimals and also micro BTC can be used for dealing with low amounts
faster blocks 2.5 minutes vs 10 minutes average: 6 confirmations of bitcoin are not equivalent of 6 confirmations of litecoin, so litecoin payments are usually confirmed after many more confirmations. It also wastes mining power because in litecoin, most of the time miners may start work with non-best blocks.
scrypt vs sha-256: since scrypt can be relatively efficiently run on CPU/GPU which means botnets can easily control a lot of hashing power. Also, scrypt is relatively less analyzed and used than sha-256, so it may not be more secure tha sha-256.
Technically, bitcoin does what litecoin in an equal or better way. Also, bitcoin testnet can be used to experiment with new features.
Why do we need litecoin that actually has monetary value?(around 2.7USD per LTC now) Is it just promoted by a group of people who missed the bitcoin get-rich boat?
Bitcoin is novel concept and early adopters rightly earn their rewards for the risk they have taken.
84 million vs 21 millions: since bitcoin is divisible upto atleast 9 decimals and also micro BTC can be used for dealing with low amounts
faster blocks 2.5 minutes vs 10 minutes average: 6 confirmations of bitcoin are not equivalent of 6 confirmations of litecoin, so litecoin payments are usually confirmed after many more confirmations. It also wastes mining power because in litecoin, most of the time miners may start work with non-best blocks.
scrypt vs sha-256: since scrypt can be relatively efficiently run on CPU/GPU which means botnets can easily control a lot of hashing power. Also, scrypt is relatively less analyzed and used than sha-256, so it may not be more secure tha sha-256.
Technically, bitcoin does what litecoin in an equal or better way. Also, bitcoin testnet can be used to experiment with new features.
Why do we need litecoin that actually has monetary value?(around 2.7USD per LTC now) Is it just promoted by a group of people who missed the bitcoin get-rich boat?
Bitcoin is novel concept and early adopters rightly earn their rewards for the risk they have taken.
Chinese scrypt-o?..lol
June 24, 2013, 08:53:36 PM
My main reason for prefer litecoin (or a faster coin) over bitcoin is simply the confirmation time. When I have to wait over an hour after a transaction is initiated in order to use that amount, it's simply impractical and completely unnecessary. litecoin takes much less time. (though something like worldcoin would be more ideal).
Why wait an hour then? You are accepting less security just starting accepting Bitcoin with 2 confirmations. Tada 66% faster.
June 24, 2013, 08:52:18 PM
My main reason for prefer litecoin (or a faster coin) over bitcoin is simply the confirmation time. When I have to wait over an hour after a transaction is initiated in order to use that amount, it's simply impractical and completely unnecessary. litecoin takes much less time. (though something like worldcoin would be more ideal)
Also, ASIC's will ruin bitcoin mining and all the GPU miners will switch to scrypt coins. I'm not sure that detracts or adds to litecoin's overall value, but it certainly will keep more people interested.
Also, ASIC's will ruin bitcoin mining and all the GPU miners will switch to scrypt coins. I'm not sure that detracts or adds to litecoin's overall value, but it certainly will keep more people interested.
June 24, 2013, 08:30:23 PM
Litecoin is backed by hopium and jealousy.
June 24, 2013, 08:29:25 PM
Litecoin is different from bitcoin in following ways, however none of them is particularly useful and on the contrary are only less worthy.
84 million vs 21 millions: since bitcoin is divisible upto atleast 9 decimals and also micro BTC can be used for dealing with low amounts
faster blocks 2.5 minutes vs 10 minutes average: 6 confirmations of bitcoin are not equivalent of 6 confirmations of litecoin, so litecoin payments are usually confirmed after many more confirmations. It also wastes mining power because in litecoin, most of the time miners may start work with non-best blocks.
scrypt vs sha-256: since scrypt can be relatively efficiently run on CPU/GPU which means botnets can easily control a lot of hashing power. Also, scrypt is relatively less analyzed and used than sha-256, so it may not be more secure tha sha-256.
Technically, bitcoin does what litecoin in an equal or better way. Also, bitcoin testnet can be used to experiment with new features.
Why do we need litecoin that actually has monetary value?(around 2.7USD per LTC now) Is it just promoted by a group of people who missed the bitcoin get-rich boat?
Bitcoin is novel concept and early adopters rightly earn their rewards for the risk they have taken.
84 million vs 21 millions: since bitcoin is divisible upto atleast 9 decimals and also micro BTC can be used for dealing with low amounts
faster blocks 2.5 minutes vs 10 minutes average: 6 confirmations of bitcoin are not equivalent of 6 confirmations of litecoin, so litecoin payments are usually confirmed after many more confirmations. It also wastes mining power because in litecoin, most of the time miners may start work with non-best blocks.
scrypt vs sha-256: since scrypt can be relatively efficiently run on CPU/GPU which means botnets can easily control a lot of hashing power. Also, scrypt is relatively less analyzed and used than sha-256, so it may not be more secure tha sha-256.
Technically, bitcoin does what litecoin in an equal or better way. Also, bitcoin testnet can be used to experiment with new features.
Why do we need litecoin that actually has monetary value?(around 2.7USD per LTC now) Is it just promoted by a group of people who missed the bitcoin get-rich boat?
Bitcoin is novel concept and early adopters rightly earn their rewards for the risk they have taken.
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