1
2
This video claims that Litecoin is more secure than Bitcoin.
If the only differentiator between LTC and BTC is SCrypt, then I don't see how a merkle chain of 6 blocks would be more secure than the other.
Can someone explain the details of why he thinks this the case?
1
TL;DR: He compares one hour worth of transaction blocks, not six blocks. I.e. he compares the security of 6 blocks in the bitcoin network opposed to 24 blocks in the litecoin network.
In the video the host reads from a sheet with calculations that is supposed to prove that Litecoin is more secure than bitcoin. The calculation is based on the assumption that a 51% attacker wants to mine one hour worth of blocks with 35% of the mining power. Finally, he concludes that 8 transaction blocks in the litecoin network offer a similar security as 6 blocks in the bitcoin network. I.e. block to block litecoin isn't securer than bitcoin, however it reaches the same level of security in less time.
I can't comment in how far the presented numbers are factual (I didn't repeat the calculation), however I am not convinced of the conclusion "litecoin is magnitudes more secure than bitcoin". A 51% attack does not require an hour worth of blocks, but rather a specific number of blocks, in which even the host tells us that Bitcoin is more secure.
I agree, the ratio is compute power over time, not blocks. A shorter block interval doesn't mean higher security, it just means more frequent confirms. – goodguys_activate – 2013-09-03T22:27:29.130
Could you please provide a quote of the relevant part of the video and/or the time where it occurs in the video (so one could skip to the relevant part)? – Murch – 2013-09-03T21:33:02.283
@Murch The video is sparse on meat and full of fluff. I'm trying to find out where their source is. From what I can tell, these are LTC investors promoting a tulip market – goodguys_activate – 2013-09-03T22:28:31.900
In Bitcoin you have on average 1 block per 10 minutes. In Litecoin you have on average 1 block per 2.5 minutes. So if the merchant waits the same amount of time for confirmations, he will have in Litecoin more confirmations and hence more security. See also https://bitcoil.co.il/Doublespend.pdf.
– Meni Rosenfeld – 2014-02-17T17:33:18.760@MeniRosenfeld is the security of each the same of BTC and LTC in intervals of 10 minutes? I would think this would be the case... – goodguys_activate – 2014-02-17T21:31:55.360
@makerofthings7: Your sentence is difficult to parse, but - all else being equal (only difference is mean block interval), waiting 10 minutes in LTC is more secure than waiting 10 minutes in BTC; at least in any scenario we should be concerned with. More details are in the linked paper. – Meni Rosenfeld – 2014-02-18T15:21:20.093
@MeniRosenfeld Great paper; my previous comment doesn't make sense to me either. So in short, X confirmations of BTC equals the security of X confirmations LTC, however due to the confirmation rate, LTC will have more security than BTC in a shorter amount of time. No? – goodguys_activate – 2014-02-18T16:07:18.757
@makerofthings7: That's about right. – Meni Rosenfeld – 2014-02-18T16:27:42.250
@MeniRosenfeld Are you aware of any discussions in the Bitcoin world that talk about reducing confirmation time? There was discussion about increasing the block size, but reducing the confirmation time would accomodate more transactions (or ones with larger scripts) given that the appropriate adjustments for Coinbase and target are set. – goodguys_activate – 2014-02-18T16:32:29.827
@makerofthings7: I think there were some such discussions in the context of Aviv Zohar's work on scalability and GHOST. With the forking penalty removed there is much less reason not to reduce the block time. – Meni Rosenfeld – 2014-02-18T17:10:40.063