Introduction
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2011. It’s intended to be faster and cheaper than Bitcoin, but it also has some disadvantages in comparison. This post covers the basics of LTC and explains what it is.
What Is Litecoin (LTC)?
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was created by Charlie Lee in 2011. It’s the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with an average daily trading volume of $1 billion and a total supply of 18.6 million coins.
Litecoin was designed to be more scalable than Bitcoin, making it suitable for day-to-day use in applications such as ecommerce and point of sale transactions; however, since its user base has been limited compared to Bitcoin’s (which has about 13 times more users), it hasn’t seen widespread adoption yet.
Understanding Litecoin (LTC)
- Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee in October 2011.
- It’s a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that uses blockchain technology and is based on the same blockchain as Bitcoin.
Charlie Lee
Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin, which he started in 2011. Lee sold his litecoin holdings in December 2017 and now works at Coinbase as a vice president. He’s also the founder of the Litecoin Foundation, which promotes research on cryptocurrencies and supports charities that help needy people around the world.
Lee has been an active member of both the Bitcoin and Litecoin communities since day one. In fact, he played an integral role in helping lay out plans for Bitcoin’s future as well as developing some early ideas about what makes a good blockchain token (e.: something useful).
How Litecoin Is Mined
The Litecoin mining algorithm is similar to Bitcoin, with the exception of one key difference: it uses a different hashing algorithm. Like its predecessor, Litecoin uses SHA-256 as its Proof-of-Work protocol, which means that miners must solve complex mathematical puzzles in order to validate transactions and receive rewards for their work.
Unlike Bitcoin, however, Litecoin has only two hashing algorithms (SHA-256 and Scrypt). This means that when you’re looking at pools or other ways of getting involved with mining LTC on the blockchain network—and many people do so—you won’t be able to choose between BTC and LTC pools since they both use the same hashing method but are otherwise incompatible with each other in terms of reward structures and difficulty levels.
How Litecoin Halves
The Litecoin halving is a process of reducing the reward for mining a block. It’s completely automatic, meaning that it happens every four years and will continue to do so until about 2140.
The first halving was announced in 2012 with no warning or indication at all when it would occur. This caused confusion among people trying to figure out if they should buy more LTC now or wait until later in order to get more value out of their investment.
Litecoin Maximum Supply
The maximum supply of litecoin is 84 million.
The last halving was in August 2015 and the next halving will be in 2021. The halving reduces the reward for mining a block by half, which means that it’s now two times less profitable to mine than it was before this change took place.
Litecoin Halving
The Bitcoin protocol limits the number of coins that can be generated by miners. Every 4 years, this limit is reduced by half, meaning that only two more times will it go down from 21 million Bitcoins to 14 million. This process is known as “halving”.
In Litecoin’s case, it was first introduced in 2012 when a block reward for mining was cut from 50 BTC (the equivalent of 50 LTC) per block to 25 BTC per block. In 2016, the next halving took place—this time reducing rewards from 25 BTC per block to 12.5 BTC per block and reducing total coin supply accordingly.
Litecoin Hashing Algorithm
The Litecoin network uses scrypt as its hashing algorithm. This is different from Bitcoin, which uses SHA256.
The primary benefit of using scrypt is that it can be mined more easily on a GPU than with SHA256, although some argue that both algorithms will eventually be mined by ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits). In addition to being easier to mine with GPUs, scrypt had been designed so that specialized hardware could not be used for mining; this was intended to make it harder for anyone to develop specialized hardware dedicated solely toward mining litecoins and thus reducing the advantage they have over CPU miners who use ordinary computers.
Litecoin Developments
Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin that launched in January 2011. It was designed to be more scalable, faster and cheaper than Bitcoin. Litecoin has a block time of 2.5 minutes, compared to 10 minutes for Bitcoin’s blocks. The network also uses scrypt rather than SHA256 as its proof-of-work algorithm for mining new LTC coins (compared to bitcoin’s SHA256).
In addition to being decentralized and open source, Litecoin offers SegWit integration for faster transactions as well as Lightning Network support for payments at near-zero fees per second with instant confirmation times up front.
Litecoin Advantages
Litecoin has a faster transaction time than Bitcoin, and also more Scalability.
- Litecoin has a faster transaction time than Bitcoin (1 minute vs 10 minutes).
- Litecoin is more scalable than Bitcoin: it can handle more transactions per second and has lower fees than its rival.
Litecoin Disadvantages
- Litecoin has the following disadvantages:
Transaction fees are higher than those of Bitcoin. The average transaction fee for Bitcoin is around $1, while it’s more like $2 with Litecoin. This makes it more difficult to use as a means of payment than other cryptocurrencies that have lower transaction fees and fewer restrictions on their use in everyday life. - Not as widely accepted as Bitcoin or Ethereum (ETH). Many people don’t know about Litecoin, so they may not see it as an option for their day-to-day spending needs if they’re only interested in buying bitcoin or ethereum outright instead of trading for them on exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini. In addition, since there aren’t any big companies backing up this coin yet—and since many think that investing in cryptocurrencies is too risky—it could take some time before mainstream adoption occurs through microtransactions rather than full-scale purchases by businesses themselves!
Where to Buy Litecoin
To buy Litecoin, you can choose to do so on an exchange like Coinbase or Bitstamp. You can also use your credit card to purchase LTC with fiat currency. When buying Litecoins with fiat currency, it is important to note that this will limit how many coins you can purchase at once since most exchanges only allow limited amounts of cryptocurrency per day.
If you prefer not to use fiat cash but still want the benefits of owning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etherium (ETH), then consider buying Litecoin through an exchange such as Coinsquare where users can trade BTC for LTC instantly without any fees!
How to Sell Litecoin
If you want to sell Litecoin, it’s easy. All you need to do is go online and buy some Bitcoin (GBP) or Ethereum (ETH), then exchange your purchased cryptocurrency for LTC. You can also just sell your Bitcoin on an exchange, but if you don’t have any bitcoins yet it may be difficult for the exchange to process a transaction for them.
If this sounds confusing, don’t worry—we’ll walk through the process step by step below!
How is Litecoin Different from Bitcoin?
Litecoin was designed to be more scalable than Bitcoin. It has a block time of 2.5 minutes, compared with 10 minutes for Bitcoin. This allows for faster transaction processing and better efficiency in terms of network load on both sides of the transaction: miners and clients that receive payments from miners.
Litecoin can have up to 84 million coins, whereas Bitcoin has an upper limit of 21 million coins that will eventually be mined out by 2040 (at which point no more new coins will be added). As well as having less total supply than Bitcoin, Litecoin’s maximum supply decreases every four years until it reaches its final amount sometime around 2024 or 2025 depending on how quickly miners find new blocks after each halving event (see below).
Will Litecoin Have a Future?
In a word, yes.
In fact, Litecoin has been one of the most successful cryptocurrencies in terms of its ability to weather market fluctuations and keep its value high. The reason for this is because it has several advantages over Bitcoin as a payment currency:
- It can be used on every mobile device with an internet connection (mobile phones, tablets and computers). This makes it very easy for people to use Litecoin when they don’t have access to an ATM or bank machine;
- It uses less energy than Bitcoin—less power consumption means lower costs per transaction;
- Its recent blockchain upgrade made it faster than ever before – so you’ll never be waiting around while your transaction confirms again!
Is Litecoin Still a Good Investment?
Litecoin is still a good investment. It has a bright future, and it will continue to be the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world.
Litecoin has had some bumps along its road to adoption, but there’s no question that Litecoin has a lot of potential for growth in the coming years. While other cryptocurrencies are experiencing rapid growth, Litecoin should continue its steady climb if you buy now rather than wait until next year or later when prices may have increased significantly from where they currently stand (or even declined).
What Is Better, Litecoin or Ethereum?
Ethereum is a platform for smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing computer programs that can be programmed to automatically execute when specific conditions are met.
Litecoin, on the other hand, is a store of value because it’s limited to 21 million coins and has a total supply of 84 million (for comparison: Bitcoin has no fixed limit). Because Litecoin has such low inflation rate over time, its value will likely be stable in comparison with other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum which could fluctuate wildly depending on whether they’re gaining or losing popularity among investors.
In terms of market capitalization alone (the number metric used as an indicator of how valuable something is), Ethereum currently has more than twice as much capitalization as Litecoin at $108 billion vs $38 billion respectively – even though both coins have roughly similar values today!
This Post Covers the Basics of LTC and Explains What it is.
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project. It was created in 2011 by former Google engineer Charles Lee. The name “Litecoin” comes from the release of version 0.5, which reduced the size of its blockchain from 1 MB to 1 MB (the original Bitcoin block size).
In addition to being based on Bitcoin’s codebase, it also shares many similarities with other cryptocurrencies such as Namecoin and Dogecoin:
- It uses Scrypt for mining (instead of SHA3)
- It uses scrypt algo instead of SHA256 algo
Conclusion
Litecoin (LTC) is an open-source cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin. The Litecoin project was introduced in 2011 by Charlie Lee, who also created the original version of the cryptocurrency. It aims to be faster, cheaper and more secure than Bitcoin. In this post we’ll go over some of the key differences between Litecoin vs Bitcoin including how they both work differently from each other as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages.