Noted. From an investment point LTC mining is still not of significance. Owning 50% of a 4% market is still less than owning 10% of the full market. Additionally, albeit the existence of alternative digital currencies is an important aspect of the whole ecosystem, LTC just doesn't have the same market penetration as btc, which raises the question whether a 4% market cap is already bubble territory, especially since the money supply is really 4-fold in LTC, not the 2:1 relationship now.
That said, friedcat may have the resources (time,money) available to fund a project like that as part of the speculative activity of AM - I'll make sure it gets mentioned in one of the upcoming board meetings.
Right term is Scrypt mining. Scrypt mining is much bigger than LTC mining. Almost all alt coins are based on Scrypt. Market is growing.
http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/I'd conclude that the reason for choosing scrypt as the basis of new blockchains is to reach a larger user base and to fight the effect of mining warfare, where established networks can squash newcomers. This point makes double sha256 hashing unattractive for newcomers.
There is no inherent benefit of choosing one algorithm over the other. Scrypt is probably chosen as a matter of the cut&paste and pump&dump mentality of the founders. I expect that mentality to change and people will start increasing their innovation level to diversify the POW algorithm itself.
Is it not a benefit than scrypt is less susceptible to those big established mining networks?
Or would scrypt invariably end up the same? I know for sure ASICs are not a possibility, right?