Wow, I was fully expecting an inflammatory post, ridiculing alt coin miners...but I couldn't agree more.  I keep telling people,  you're going to have to do some work and actually think about what you mine instead of just pointing your rigs at whatever is turning a profit at that exact moment.  That is unsustainable, and is exactly why the bottom of the market has fallen out.  Gotta look at the big picture, or you might as well pack it up, cause you're going to be very disappointed. 

I'm not particularly crazy about scrypt-n, I don't like how the n-factor scales and it is just a temporary reprieve from asics.  That said, it IS a temporary reprieve from asic. So, for us GPU miners, its a way to stay relevant for a little while longer.  I know the asic lovers will flame me, but CPU/GPU mining has its place in the life-cycle of a coin, and scrypt-n, for all its faults, ensures that for the time being.  I personally like x11 much better (yes, yes, I know its not asic resistant blah blah blah) than scrypt-n.  They're both stop gap measures though, so why not use the one that doesn't rape your GPUs and your electric bill?

Personally, I like drk way more than vrt.  Like the algo way better and I like the anonymity feature.  Drk is really hard to mine to mine these days though.  I can't comment on vrt mining rates, I haven't mined it in a long time.

It isn't just GPU profitability that's way down, its everything.  Asics are a terrible investment too.  If you're a student of history, you'll know that the people who got rich during the California gold rush weren't the miners, it was the people selling the mining equipment.  Same is true for crypto.  Unless you manage to get ahold of the latest and greatest asics before everyone else, and get real lucky mining, you're playing a losing game too if your angle is to mine and dump.

That said, I'm not a big time miner by any stretch, I have ~5Mh.  I knew the bubble would pop in dramatic fashion, and it is, so I didn't go overextend myself buying gpus or delude myself into thinking I would keep making huge profits.  What I am doing is continuing to mine what I think has a future and diversifying my portfolio.  Sure, I'm not making any money atm, but it may pay off in the future.  I want to get my hands on as much btc, ltc, etc as I can while the diff and prices are down.  I'm in this for the long haul, not a quick buck. 

Seriously.  Every one of these type of threads turns into the same thing, people promoting their crapcoin to try and sucker in buyers.  There are a few good coins (and I mean very few) that have been named, but some of these are just comical. 

Darkcoin is the only one I'm taking seriously, besides the big boys like btc, ltc.  I'm holding a bunch of other coins, but they're all a gamble, and I honestly expect they'll be worthless in six months.

Yeah, and it completely refutes your entire argument.  Ltc was supposed to be asic (and even GPU) resistant, like scrypt-n.  It took it even further though, in that they didn't even want it to be GPU mineable.  Did that kill it?  Nope, 2nd biggest coin now.  Would ltc be better off if it was asic resistant?  Yep.  Dev clearly says so himself.  I don't particularly like scrypt-n, and I don't think it is will prevent asics in the long run, but your assertion that trying to be asics resistant is killing it is completely assinine. 

I nominate emucoin.  Devs have been MIA for a while, delisted from exchanges.

Emu
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494855.0

Hell yes DRK is a good coin.  One of the very few that have come out in the last several months that has or does anything useful.

Fake hash vulnerability.  Looks like the stratum pools need a patch. 

https://github.com/MPOS/php-mpos/issues/1938

I've been watching this coin for a while and mining a little here and there, but if you guys change to x11, I'm all in.  I'm a huge fan of x11 and would love to see more of it.  I know its supposedly not optimized, but that's perfectly fine by me.  I love seeing my GPU temps in the 60's and not having to worry about multipools or asics.  I know its just tentative right now, but I really think it would be a step in the right direction.  Hope you follow through with it.

Edit:

Lol, sure.  Soon as I post.  Wtf is up with that hiro pool?  I've been mining drk since release and never seen anything like that.  Has someone found an exploit or something??

Whatever your thoughts about his ideas, I know spiffcow, and I can assure you he is no ponzi/pyramid schemer.  He, like many others, are tired of the pump and dump, IPO, pre-mined, insta-mined, shit coins that are ruining crypto currencies.  There is a lot of room for innovation, and a lot of room for improvement over older, existing currencies, but frankly the whole thing is turning into a joke.  Every day its another scam, failed launch, failed coin, etc.  We can argue about asics and infrastructure all day long, but the fact is, bitcoin, litecoin, etc have all gotten their start as CPU/GPU mined coins.  CPU/GPU mining is what has introduced a vast number of people to cryto currencies, and CPU/GPU mining is the most likely place for new ideas and evolution to take place.  These scam coins are giving all crypto currencies a bad name, and whether you like it or not, they're just going to keep popping up unless we all band together to put a stop to it.  

Well, when you're right, you're right.  Dogecoin makes a mockery of crypto.

Lol, what a joke.  This coin has been announced 2-3 times since January, and never made it off the launch pad, Google it.  Now the Dev is instamining the shit out of it.  Might as well have just done a massive premine on this shitcoin, would have been more honest at least.

Darkcoin...that's really all I can think of.  Out of all the coins that have come out I'm the last few months, its the only one that actually does something useful. 

I like you.

Well, for one, the dev released a clone of this coin yesterday.  And two, have you read his "plan" on the front page now?   Got nothing to do with russian exchanges, sorry.

Try -I 25 -g1 thread-concurrency 45000.  I get 115-120 mh with my 280x's.

This guy doesn't give a shit about these coins, he's just fucking around.  That's why he's never bothered to do a block explorer or release stratum code. 

And meanwhile, fuguecoin doesn't even have correctly working pools, miners, block explorers, etc.  Glad to see you've got your priorities in order dev.

Well, I was excited until I read "can not be mined at all".  So its a 100% IPO coin.  How is this a good idea?