When Litecoin launched, everyone thought ASICs would dominate Scrypt within a year. But the memory‑hard nature kept the playing field relatively open for longer. Even now, you can mine LTC with a consumer GPU and still turn a profit in some regions. That’s a testament to the algorithm choice. Charlie Lee was pragmatic: he didn’t try to defeat ASICs entirely; he just delayed them. That gave the network time to build a decentralised mining community. Satoshi would’ve appreciated that practical approach. If you’re interested in the history of mining algorithms, this article covers the key moments clearly.