Litecoin, ranked amongst the top ten cryptocurrencies in circulation, is referred to as ‘digital silver in the crypto sphere. The ‘digital gold’ equivalent is Bitcoin (BTC), which has a few technological limitations and some distinct fundamental differences compared to Litecoin (LTC). LTC was developed to compliment BTC and solve concerns like transaction speed and concentrated mining pools. Want to know more about LTC? Keep reading to understand the various facets of LTC.
What is Litecoin (LTC)?
The peer-to-peer cryptocurrency ‘digital silver’, Litecoin, is an open-source software project founded in 2011 by ex-Googler and former Director of Engineering at Coinbase, Charlie Lee. LTC released under the MIT/X11 license and is featured with tremendous speed enabling almost instantaneous, near-zero cost payments to anyone worldwide. Furthermore, the cryptographic protocol is fully decentralised and can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware.
Bitcoin vs Litecoin
BTC and LTC share almost the same ideology, but the fundamental difference lies in the fees required to process a block and the transaction processing speed. Apart from this, LTC is trading almost four times (4X) faster than BTC. Let’s explore some of the distinctive features of the two leading cryptocurrencies.
| Feature(s) | Litecoin (LTC) | Bitcoin (BTC) |
|---|---|---|
| Created | November 7, 2011 | January 3, 2009 |
| Developed by | Charlie Lee | Satoshi Nakamoto |
| Transaction processing speed | Long-term average transaction confirmation around 2.5 minutes. | Long-term average transaction confirmation time is around 10 minutes. |
| Total number of coins (Supply limit) | 84 million coins. | 21 million coins. |
| Cryptographic algorithms | Scrypt. | SHA-256. |
| Block Reward Per Block | 12.5 | 25 |
| Market Cap. (in USD) | 9.7 billion | 153.9 billion |
The Working
Litecoin uses PoW-based mining and encryption to ensure peer-to-peer decentralization and security. And, in the context of mining, the miners are rewarded with 25 LTC per block, and the rewards are halved every 840,000 blocks (once every four years). Moreover, LTC uses the Scrypt algorithm, which is simpler than BTC’s SHA-256.
The Founder’s vision
Lee’s vision was that LTC would facilitate small, cheap, and almost everyday types compared to BTC, which was ideal for sizeable transactions and long-term store of value. Meanwhile, Lee’s vision neared culmination with the recent announcement of LitePay in February 2018, which would permit users to spend LTC as much as a debit card or a credit card.
The Future of Litecoin
Over the past several decades’ cryptocurrencies have garnered tremendous public interest. Meanwhile, Litecoin has carved out a niche among users seeking a reliable medium of exchange for alternative coins. Furthermore, LTC is widely accepted in the Chinese and Asian markets and looks poised to lead to massive cryptocurrency adoption.