Difference between revisions of "Talk:Litecoin"
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* The "pyramid scheme" argument assumes as a premise that all obstacles are insurmountable and LiteCoin is an inevitable failure. With this assumption, the same accusation could be made of any currency. | * The "pyramid scheme" argument assumes as a premise that all obstacles are insurmountable and LiteCoin is an inevitable failure. With this assumption, the same accusation could be made of any currency. | ||
* It's argued that LiteCoin cannot be "silver to bitcoin's gold" because Bitcoin has units small enough for any transaction. Of course, this is a straw man argument. The LiteCoin developers are certainly aware that 1BTC can be broken into smaller units, and their "silver to bitcoin's gold" claim has nothing to do with unit size. LiteCoin's potential as "silver" comes from the faster block rate and corresponding decrease in confirmation latency, which makes it potentially more suitable than Bitcoin for everyday transactions. | * It's argued that LiteCoin cannot be "silver to bitcoin's gold" because Bitcoin has units small enough for any transaction. Of course, this is a straw man argument. The LiteCoin developers are certainly aware that 1BTC can be broken into smaller units, and their "silver to bitcoin's gold" claim has nothing to do with unit size. LiteCoin's potential as "silver" comes from the faster block rate and corresponding decrease in confirmation latency, which makes it potentially more suitable than Bitcoin for everyday transactions. | ||
| − | * The article claims that LiteCoin is more vulnerable to custom hardware, as hashing is slow on all commodity hardware. But the scrypt hash function is designed specifically to be secure against custom hardware, just as it's secure against GPUs. (See http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf for technical details.) | + | * The article claims that LiteCoin is more vulnerable to custom hardware, as hashing is slow on all commodity hardware. But the scrypt hash function is designed specifically to be secure against custom hardware, just as it's secure against GPUs. (See http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf for technical details.) If the network gets larger, it ''might'' still be practical to build custom hardware that can compete with the network, but it's not so obvious or trivial that it can reasonably be presented as a criticism without evidence. |
* The article states as a fact that "Litecoin does not provide anything significant that Bitcoin does not already provide." This is debatable, as Litecoin provides faster confirmation and GPU-resistant proof-of-work, which could both be considered significant. | * The article states as a fact that "Litecoin does not provide anything significant that Bitcoin does not already provide." This is debatable, as Litecoin provides faster confirmation and GPU-resistant proof-of-work, which could both be considered significant. | ||
[[User:Angus|Angus]] 08:53, 15 January 2012 (GMT) | [[User:Angus|Angus]] 08:53, 15 January 2012 (GMT) | ||
Revision as of 09:09, 15 January 2012
There is nothing on this discussion page about this article at the moment. Use it. Reasonable informed edits will be allowed through until a consensus is reached and the page unlocked. That is comments that are neither pro or anti litecoin, but are neutral and objective. Genjix 10:01, 28 November 2011 (GMT)
Errors
"Designed to be inefficient on all common computer components" -- this is bogus and false. Please edit and replace "all common computer components" with "both CPUs and GPUs".
Personally, I think the whole scypt-chain thing is a covert scam by people who (like me) know how to build fast custom scypt-hardware using stuff you can buy from [DigiKey http://www.digikey.com/]. So, let's stick to the facts: scypt is slow on CPUs and GPUs, but nobody has proven that it is slow on all commodity computer components. I expect that if there were enough money to be made, somebody would produce a counterexample proving that it is not slow on all commodity computer components. My threshhold for doing that is pretty high right now, but if I had more free time...
Eldentyrell 03:19, 14 January 2012 (GMT)
Siliness
"Considered silver to Bitcoin's gold"... this is a content-free sentence. In what sense is it "silver"? Maybe it would be better to simply "inline" the analogy and replace "silver to Bitcoin's gold" with whatever that analogy is trying to mean (I have no idea what that is...)?
Also, one of the main differences between silver and gold is that most of the demand for silver is industrial demand (photography, solar panels, etc) while most of the demand for gold is monetary. I consider jewelry to be "wearable money", and the use of gold in the semiconductor industry, while pervasive, accounts for incredibly tiny quantities). I have no idea what the "industrial demand" for litecoins is. This is a really misleading analogy.
Eldentyrell 03:19, 14 January 2012 (GMT)
Objectivity please, missing citation
There are two criticisms in the article, that I believe are not objective:
- Mining Monopoly - while I heard claims that Litecoin is volnurable to botnets, I never heard anything about a single monopoloy, or anyone possibly building a "single piece of specialized/custom hardware to overtake all the commodity mining systems combined". Can we have a citation for this, or remove it if no citation is found?
- Pyramid Scheme - The article states, as if it is a fact, that "Litecoin effectively functions as a pyramid scheme". This is hardly objective. Litecoin could possibly become say 1% of the total Bitcoin market, and could indeed function as "silver". The same arguments in FAQ#Is Bitcoin a Ponzi_scheme apply here.
Can we fix this?
Ripper234 13:43, 13 January 2012 (GMT)
I agree, and believe that all the criticisms in the article are written from a non-objective and potentially misleading viewpoint.
- The "pyramid scheme" argument assumes as a premise that all obstacles are insurmountable and LiteCoin is an inevitable failure. With this assumption, the same accusation could be made of any currency.
- It's argued that LiteCoin cannot be "silver to bitcoin's gold" because Bitcoin has units small enough for any transaction. Of course, this is a straw man argument. The LiteCoin developers are certainly aware that 1BTC can be broken into smaller units, and their "silver to bitcoin's gold" claim has nothing to do with unit size. LiteCoin's potential as "silver" comes from the faster block rate and corresponding decrease in confirmation latency, which makes it potentially more suitable than Bitcoin for everyday transactions.
- The article claims that LiteCoin is more vulnerable to custom hardware, as hashing is slow on all commodity hardware. But the scrypt hash function is designed specifically to be secure against custom hardware, just as it's secure against GPUs. (See http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf for technical details.) If the network gets larger, it might still be practical to build custom hardware that can compete with the network, but it's not so obvious or trivial that it can reasonably be presented as a criticism without evidence.
- The article states as a fact that "Litecoin does not provide anything significant that Bitcoin does not already provide." This is debatable, as Litecoin provides faster confirmation and GPU-resistant proof-of-work, which could both be considered significant.
Angus 08:53, 15 January 2012 (GMT)
