From what I have read, an attack to the network does not need to be 51%. The likely hood to be succesfull with above 51% is higher. So it really depends on how you want to look at a secure network.
Ok then to make this truly secure, the 51% or higher, nethash would have to be controlled by asics owned and operated by Noblecoin... correct?
You don't have to answer.
The point I'm getting at is the asics mining equipment WOULD have to be owned and operated by Noblecoin.
If Noblecoin is mining >51% of all the coins, then they would have to sell the coins to support a continual upgrade cycle to insure they maintain >51%.
Just seems like a lot of time, money, headache invested just to stay ahead of the asics game, not to mention the community would demand accountability for the mined coins just like the pre-mine coins.
I apologize if you felt like I ignored this question. But yes, the only sCrypt coin that can reasonably do this is Litecoin. Other sCrypt coins can exist, but they either have to have a substantive share of hash rate to make attacks nontrivial (kinda like the 72/12.5/1.5 spilt between LTC/DOGE/WDC) or have to be merge-mined under a parent chain (which would most likely have to be LTC). Reasonably speaking, we can state that non-triviality occurs at a few percent of total hash rate (the point at which it costs "significant" resources to attack).
As for continuing the cycle, yes, either funds would need to be reallocated or external financing would need to continuously flow in. But this sort of issue is not only staying ahead of the ASIC "game" but also towards making a secure ledger.
When you really think about it, the most PoW coins that we "should" have lies at about 3 times the number of non-intersecting algorithms (or about 20 coins at the moment) which is way less than the number of substantive competing coins out there.
Actually I was waiting for 1kb to answer, but thanks for your answer.