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The Pirate Bay is now accepting Litecoin donations
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- a3voices 14y agoMtgox, the most popular Bitcoin exchange site, plans on supporting Litecoin soon[1]. Also interesting is that Litecoin now has a Wikipedia article[2] dedicated to it. [1] http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/potent-ddos-attacks-on-mt-gox-delays-rollout-of-new-virtual-currency/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/potent-ddos-attacks-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litecoin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litecoin edit: removed comment about Litecoin being the only other cryptocurrency with a Wikipedia article
- Flimm 14y agoBased on the Wikipedia article, it seems to me that Litecoin is only an iterative improvement on Bitcoin. Why are people choosing to use it?
- a3voices 14y agoWell one possible reason is that speculators enjoy the drama of new currencies that compete with Bitcoin, and the trendiness of investing in them.
- haakon 14y agoTrue or not, the word is that Litecoin was created so that people who were bitter about not having been amongst the earliest of the early Bitcoin adopters can have a new chance at a steep value increase. It's not even clear to me that Litecoin is an improvement at all, it just contains certain tweaks.
- gus_massa 14y agoPPCoin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin
- a3voices 14y agoMy bad, didn't know this did as well!
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoI am fairly certain they're adding "all" of the crypto currencies. Litecoin, Namecoin, PPCoin, Terrracoin, etc...
- zizee 14y agoThis is the second Litecoin article I have seen today. Is there enough space for two cypto currencies? What problems does Litecoin solve apart from giving a second chance to those that missed out on the easy early mining of bitcoins?
- GigabyteCoin 14y ago>Is there enough space for two cypto currencies? Check out btc-e.com and vircurex.com There are about 8 alternative currencies that I track daily at the moment.
- Tmmrn 14y agohttps://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/History-of-cryptocurrency https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/History-of-cryptocurre...
- abrkn 14y ago"Litecoin provides faster transaction confirmations (2.5 minutes on average) and uses memory-hard, scrypt-based mining proof-of-work algorithm to target the regular computers and GPUs most people already have." http://litecoin.org http://litecoin.org I remember that the original goal was to encourage CPU mining and Litecoin failed at this.
- nwh 14y agoNot to mention, with faster (easier) confirmations you need more of them to form the same cumulative proof of work. If anything, Litecoin is magnitudes weaker due to the slower hashrate compared with Bitcoin.
- lucb1e 14y ago> If anything, Litecoin is magnitudes weaker due to the slower hashrate compared with Bitcoin But that doesn't say anything about Litecoin, it only says something about Litecoin's current state of being. Bitcoin could similarly be said to have a hashrate surmountable by a few wealthy companies working together. Things will improve over time, and certainly if Litecoin proves to be the better, it will have a bigger hash rate than Bitcoin. It's like saying "Windows is better because more people use Windows". Yeah of course there is more support for the most used platform, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of a newly released OS X. It may well be better, and in ten years it might be biggest. Not saying it will be, but it might. Same goes for Bitcoin vs Litecoin hashrate.
- abrkn 14y agoIf you're interested in obtaining some Litecoin, I've developed an open source exchange. The exchange also issues LTC IOUs on Ripple for those on the bleeding edge. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174643 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174643
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoThere is also btc-e.com and vircurex.com
- Kiro 14y agoTime to start hoarding.
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoThe price already spiked last night and is beginning to drop again on btc-e.com
- pfisch 14y agoThis is a bad idea. Makes bitcoins seem less legitimate as a form of currency. Also as far as I can tell this only helps out people mining coins, which is not at all the purpose of these currencies.
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoWhy should TPB care about Bitcoin? TPB cares about donations.
- maxerickson 14y agoIs there some objective reason to make bitcoins seem legitimate? I guess there is the value provided by a decentralized transaction system, but at this point, competition seems like a better idea than picking a winner.
- kzrdude 14y agohow is bitcoin viable if it doesn't cope with competition?
- tptacek 14y agoIt's not, and it doesn't.
- digitalmagus 14y agoAh right, because the creation and competition of 100+ other fiat currencies, makes the dollar seem like less of a currency. Executive summary: Bad logic.
- Wilya 14y agoBeing open to donations in Litecoin isn't a very big risk to take. They could also accept donations in HN karma or WoW gold if the infrastructure enabled them to do so. It's not like it costs them anything. When people start accepting payments in Litecoin, it will be noteworthy.
- evilduck 14y agoAgreed that its not a huge risk, but you can't spend HN karma. Litecoins can be converted to cash though, so there's at least some difference between the two.
- jiggy2011 14y agoThere's actually a marketplace for reddit account that have high karma. It wouldn't surprise me if such a thing existed for HN accounts also.
- Aqueous 14y agoLitecoin seems to solve the wrong problem with Bitcoin. Bitcoin's mining difficulty is calibrated fine for having a fixed limit. It's the fact that Bitcoin and Litecoin both stop at a fixed amount of units that makes them ultimately deflationary currencies that don't reward spending. BitCoin is unique in that you can get an exact, real time measure of how the 'economy' is doing, whereas with the American economy these measures are extrapolated based on statistical work. Somebody should fork bitcoin and create a monetary policy adjustment algorithm that responds to changes in the transaction rate and prints more money (i.e., adjusts mining difficulty) in response. They should also remove the fixed ceiling.
- nwh 14y agoI'm not sure why people have a problem directly with the fixed bitcoin limit. Unless there are some radical changes in medicine in the next few years, none of us will ever live to 2140 to see it.
- Aqueous 14y agoThe fixed BitCoin limit means the rate of production of BitCoin is also fixed, or changes in a determined way. It can't be decreased or increased in response to changes in the rate of spending. I think a monetary policy algorithm might actually adjust the rate of production of the coin upwards to counteract deflation.
- nwh 14y agoI imagine you'd struggle to do that reliably though. There's little indicators in the blockchain as to what an individual coin is worth, and relying on any external source for data would ruin the decentralised mantra that the currency is built upon.
- Aqueous 14y agoyou mean the exchange rate? it wouldn't need to know the exchange rate, just what volume of bitcoin is changing hands at any given point in time which is part of the blockchain.
- jordanbaucke 14y agoApply all your arguments 'for' or 'against' Litecoin and apply them to 'Gold' vs. 'Silver'. Imagine if anyone would be willing to accept one versus the other as a 'store of wealth' (gold/silver that is) In the end, neither has any 'intrinsic value' in the modern age. Sure we can 'make things' out of gold/silver, but we can't eat it or shoot it at each other: making it more or less as worthless. Yet people "expect" that neither will be worthless in a breakdown of society. In the end it's all human emotion. If Bitcoin is what they say it is ... than why would it care about 'competition' - the gold in the ground doesn't.
- wnight 14y agoActually, societal breakdown is where bitcoin doesn't work. Without communication all chains are forked. And when networked, with vastly different computing ability left over it'd be incredibly easy for the leader to manipulate.
- dualogy 14y ago> Sure we can 'make things' out of gold/silver, but we can't eat it or shoot it at each other: making it more or less as worthless Or---priceless! Hoarding them historically never (or hardly ever) interfered with anyone's livelihood or industrial endeavours, yet because of their arbitrary ("useless") nature could "absorb" / proxy per-unit any measure of wealth applicable at a given time and place-----which is another valuable property in addition to the usual "scarce, indestructable-but-divisible etc." list of benefits.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- GigabyteCoin 14y agoSomething like "PrimeCoin" (where the miners are continually finding bigger primes) would be awesome, but we would need to wait a few years between confirmations. Also you have no way of knowing when or where or even IF the next prime number will show it's face.
- jere 14y agoFrom the litecoin front page: >The Litecoin network is therefore scheduled to produce 84 million litecoins, which is 4 times as many currency units as Bitcoin. This seems like a completely useless and arbitrary statistic for highlighting the advantages of a currency.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- dualogy 14y agoOh I can totally see where this will be going from now on. It does set a useful precedent! Next up: "LiterCoin---will never exceed 168 circulation units!" LitestCoin---336 max, guaranteed! Way to dilute this originally neat "digital gold" idea. So turns out, while you can't clone BTC, we can copy ideas infinitely, unlike say some heavy-weight metals rooted firmly in the tangible physical plane :) Now people will argue "but BTC have all the first-mover network effects!". Yes, for a time but things move lightning fast on this web we all love, and don't the "thoughts of many nations" about "high-value proofed against the elements, politics, technology and time itself" develop over millenia---generations and generations of attempts to cheat, "corner", fake or "resource alternatives" a unit only to always admit defeat in the face of the one superior element? That is, for those looking for a "hard, deflationary, non-dilutable" asset. Those will, looking harder, easily find a better one of "ancient world-class proportions". Those looking for "soft, inflationary, dilutable" transactional currency of course won't be looking into BTC and its upcoming hundreds of clones anyway. Let's face it, not every alternative clone will even make it to a major exchange but many do! LiteCoin was scheduled for MtGox, many other multi-currency exchanges let you trade (and thus arbitrage) various BTC clones ad infinitum. "Currency wars" to follow? ;) And a couple of them will easily see the same early adopter patterns of BTC. Look as LiteCoins are already valued at $3! Three bucks for the 2nd-in-line digital crypto-currency. And that's just early adopter geeks happy they have a new toy they can still mine with consumer-grade hardware (ha, gonna play with that myself I think!) and cash out when convenient. Nothing wrong with that, mind! It's all shots and giggles until someone giggles and shoots. Or so the saying goes. And who will defend BTC's "network effect" from such dilution, other than a few temporary DDoS kiddies? Let the next-in-line currencies trade on MtGox for a time, bitspend bitpay etc. will find no problem accommodating them --- perhaps at some point a "basket currency" evolves? Let's call them "eSDR". The BTC folks wouldn't like it but the other clones would love it. But none have diplomats, soldiers or bureaucrats behind them as we know ;) and it would be the minimum to at least move those crypto-currencies from "highly volatile hot speculation item" to "desired usage in commercial transactions". Arbitrage might do the rest? After all, intrinsically we know a BitCoin is not 4x as "valuable" as a LiteCoin (or 44x as of right now) but roughly equivalent once they're basketed and arbitraged. But hey, it's late and my thinking is probably by far not as sound as that of crypto-currency aficionados. I love the idea in principle, but the world knows: - those who want a truly hard, non-dilutable unit (for long-term preservation) have a better choice available that will survive whatever trends the next years of techies pop out at an ever-increasing pace. - and those who want a "soft" unit for mid/short-term transactions (before it can possibly devalue substantially) have a unit that is backed by contract law and your usage of it "defended" by, say, "the world" (if begrugdingly). Don't get me wrong: I love all the buzz and biz around BTCs these last few years. Truly I'm into what all the aficionados pull off, and whatever winnings they "made". But not sure all "desires of human nature" from a either a transactional-currency/medium-of-exchange or a long-range store-of-value are truly reflected by the thing. That said, it spawned useful technology even outside the realm of payments, such as http://dot-bit.org/Use_cases http://dot-bit.org/Use_cases One could argue -- "the world has many fiat currencies in competition, why not the same for digital crypto-currencies"? Hey, that's true! Actually that's pretty neat. But as the LiteCoin example shows, dilution can "evolve" easily. Not a problem as every party choose their currency of choice. But also completely unnecessary, as the whole world could trade&exchange on seashells tomorrow and no-one would be worse off. Different prices for the same products exist throughout the Euro-zone depending on I guess a trazillion of unknown factors, for example, and it works, so no biggie. Cool, let's have a hundred competitors as only a handful of choices will likely gain long-term momentum. And then everything changes with the next big crypto-3.0 thing in 2015 but that don't need to phaze us as long as we cash out beforehand ;D Hey, come to think of it... this LiteCoin could be something, I should invest! This could be the "EUR" to the "USD", this could still be big! ;P