In early 2013, when I bought my first Bitcoin, the altcoin scene was very different than it is today.At the time, the euphoria of Bitcoin was rubbing off onto the secondary and tertiary cryptocurrencies and there were people who genuinely thought that there could be “a silver to Bitcoin’s gold” or that altcoins could provide a useful testbed for features not yet incorporated into the Bitcoin protocol.There weren’t even that many altcoins to choose from then, maybe a few dozen and certainly less than 100.At that time, the leader of the pack was Litecoin, Charlie Lee’s “democratic” coin experiment.Even as recently as 7 months ago, the last time Bitcoin’s price went nutty, Litecoin was all the rage.It was The Next Big Thing and peaked around $50 per coin right when BTC hit $1,100, making it the Next Best Thing too.How did Litecoin become just another altcoin/scamcoin?After Googling “litecoin advantages over bitcoin” I came up with this ZDNet article from December 2013, back in Litecoin’s halcyon days.

Let’s allow the article’s author, Jason O’Grady, to walk us through the wonder that is Litecoin to see if we can’t see where it all went so wrong.Although Bitcoin is the media darling, Litecoin is a better option for the average user wanting to get into crypto-currency mining.Right off the bat, we see that Litecoin is pitched at the “average user.” This, of course, is a huge red flag that Litecoin is doomed to failure.Products and services aimed at the lowest common denominator must necessarily be shit.This works in every aspect of finance and society.If you don’t believe me, take the Bitcoin Securities Exchange scene for example.At around US$30/LTC, it’s more affordable to outright purchase too.This author, like many a CoinDesker, is of the mistaken belief that buying a whole shitty thing just because you can afford it is better than buying a part of something far superior.Today, you can buy a million satoshis for $6 or you can buy most of the Dogecoin for sale on the market.

Incredibly, some people will actually go for the latter.By this logic, if you’re trying to find transport to the next town, it’d be better to buy one rollerblade than a bus ticket.So what other reasons are there to choose Litecoin?A group of people saw this hardware race as detrimental, and sure enough we see the effects of it — namely expensive/risky hardware on an quickly rising difficulty level.Thus it’s very difficult to continue participating without large investments to stay ahead.This group of people proposed a new coin type — Litecoin (LTC) -- that relied on an algorithm that would be resistant to a rapidly escalating hardware race, one that needed fast memory and lots of it.These components are more expensive and present a serious barrier to entry for a Litecoin ASIC that would be economical.Needless to say, many derps still think that the hashrate race, that element that secures the network, is “unfair” and that the confirmations aren’t fast enough to make Bitcoin a useable consumer technology.

Not that anyone particularly cares about these points.Ironically, scrypt ASIC miners are now being developed by the likes of KNC Miner and are getting ready to fuck up Litecoin and the other scrypt-based coins quite badly.bitcoin 150 kronerWith even fewer players developing scrypt ASICs, the hashing power will be ever more centralized.bitcoin armory codeOn the consumer side, people are still perfectly content to use their Dollars, Euros, and Pesos.ethereum virtual coinAnd why risk keeping something so valuable on your phone just so you can buy a latte?bitcoin mining rig for saleLitecoin also has four times as coins scheduled to be mined (84 million versus bitcoin’s 21 million), which may make it more accessible to future participants.litecoin may 2014

Perhaps not though, as both coin types can be subdivided to eight decimal places.O’Grady gets it exactly right here and sees through Litecoin’s marketing gimmick.local bitcoin vanillaMore coins confer precisely zero advantage, as Dogecoin also demonstrates.It will be easy to accept Litecoin in a world that also accepts Bitcoin (since the technologies are nearly identical).The merchant angle would hold water, if cryptocurrencies were proving to be consumer technologies, which is dubious despite the raft of new merchants accepting it.Very few people are working on merchant processing or POS systems for altcoins either.It’s really Bitcoin or nothing at all.When it’s the best store of value the world has ever known, why roll the dice with other junk?Litecoin was never able to demonstrate its superiority.Litecoin lost the marketing as well as the technical battle.It isn’t the silver to Bitcoin’s anything.

It’s just another scamcoin that had its moment in the sun and will now be relegated to the history books next to Keisercoin, Auroracoin, and MaidSafeCoin.If you have any altcoin that’s been around for >6 months sitting in a wallet somewhere, their time has come and gone.Kids with dreams of riches who play daytrader on Cryptsy have moved on to the next shiny thing.Now would be a good time to find an alternative.Salvage what you can.And allow me to suggest Bitcoin.This tutorial will be broken down into a good, better, best scenario.With any type of crypto-currency mining, there are several hardware combinations to choose from.This can be frustrating, depending on what your long term goals are, and what type of miner you want to be.There are a few questions you must ask yourself before you begin.Having a plan before you begin will help position yourself for success.After you are satisfied with your answers to the aforementioned questions, I will go over a couple of layouts for you to choose from.

There are a couple of options for building a litecoin mining rig.For this tutorial, I am focusing on a entry level miner that utilizes a standard PC case.If you feel comfortable with electronics, you can replace the standard computer case with a custom DIY "Open air" case, such as a plastic crate.This allows you to add additional GPUs to a single miner.The enclosed cases should not contain more than 2 GPU cards.Any more than this, and you will run the risk of overheating your cards & system.This baseline recommendation utilizes some older components that won't be desirable for resale/reuse.This configuration uses a USB Drive in lieu of a hard drive, and should be run with Ubuntu Linux.Much of this hardware is on backorder.I recommend using a Graphics card equal or greater to a R9 280 (or HD7950 & HD7970) and above.The baseline model should get you approximately 1500 KH/s (1.5 MH/s).The cost of the hardware varies, depending on availability.The recommended hardware utilizes mostly current generation electronics, and has a better chance of resale/reuse after mining.

This setup also uses a internal hard drive, and can use Windows or Linux to operate.If you choose windows, you may under volt your GPU cards to help reduce heat.This setup should net approximately 1750KH/s (1.75MH/s).If you wish to build a multiple GPU, open-air mining rig, then you must take great care in assembling & running your equipment.Open-air cases (plastic crate etc...)leave the sensitive electronics exposed, and should be located where they cannot be disturbed.You must also feel comfortable modifying these cases to meet your needs.Things to be aware of.Multiple GPUs (greater than 3) will need PCI-E riser cables to separate them from each other.Calculate the necessary Power Supply requirements for your system.In many cases you will need two power supplies to operate up to 6 GPUs.The added time & expense may not warrant building an open-air mining rig.Building multiple baseline miners maybe a better alternative, depending your skill level.Using the Cooler Master HAF case, it assembles differently than a typical tower case.