Bitcoin is in the news lately, as the price recovers from a low period due to uncertainty, and the fact that it is catching on big time in China. It helped that the US Department of Justice recently declared that Bitcoin is a “legal means of exchange” – this is the first time the currency has been legitimized by American agencies officially.

The problem with bitcoin mining on your own is that the difficulty has ramped up to the point where it is no longer feasible to mine with low-power high-wattage devices like video cards. A GPU capable of hashing at 300 mH/s at 200w would have been fine a year ago, but today it costs more in power than you will get back based on current exchange rates.

We wrote about Litecoin as an alternative cryptocurrency before, and it is just as useful as ever for people to get into casual bitcoin mining. With recent price increases, it is still viable to mine LTC, and sell it for BTC, turning it into a profit. Take a look at this chart, which is accurate as of November 22, 10:00 pm PST