It would be impossible to venture into the world of cryptocurrencies for any length of time without eventually encountering Litecoin (LTC), one of the oldest and most reputable coins in existence. Litecoin is an open source digital cash system similar to Bitcoin. Importantly, Litecoin was developed to improve some of the shortcomings of Bitcoin, the world’s first successful cryptocurrency. In this regard, Litecoin has also been labeled by many in this space as the “silver” to Bitcoin’s gold.
What is Litecoin (LTC)?
Litecoin was one of the earliest cryptocurrencies to enter the market. As a result, it remains one of the largest coins in this sector based on market capitalization. This highly popular coin can be found on almost all cryptocurrency exchanges. It is also one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies in the world. You can also use Litecoin to buy goods and services, or invest in other crypto projects as they emerge.
Like most cryptocurrencies, Litecoin utilizes blockchain technology to maintain decentralization. Decentralized currencies differ from traditional fiat currencies in many ways. Basically, it is not issued by a central agency such as the government. Instead, Litecoin is generated via Crystal. Officially, Litecoin is released under MIT/X11.
How does Litecoin (LTC) work?
Litecoin works in a very similar way to Bitcoin. In fact, this online payment system was directly inspired by Satoshi Nakamoto and his release of the Bitcoin protocol. Many people are surprised to learn that Litecoin was one of the earliest Bitcoin forks on the market. Therefore, although this cryptocurrency is technically almost equivalent to Bitcoin, there are some crucial differences.
Litecoin via Litecoin.org
LTC developer Charlie Lee started the Litecoin project by borrowing core code from Bitcoin. He then made some important changes to the protocol. One of the major upgrades he introduced was reducing block approval time from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes. Similar to Bitcoin, these blocks contain the next batch of transactions awaiting confirmation.
Reduced blocking time
Shorter block times have made Litecoin more scalable than its predecessor. Notably, LTC is four times faster than Bitcoin in transactions per second (tps). Lee also adjusted the transaction fee model within LTC to make it more appealing to the public. Specifically, Litecoin’s fee structure is 1/50th that of Bitcoin.
This pricing structure is one of the main attractions of this platform. Amazingly, processing a transaction costs only 1/1000th of LTC. This small fee does not change depending on the size of the transaction. You pay the same amount regardless of size. This strategy provides a major upgrade to the current market leader. For example, PayPal charges a 3% fee on all transactions made within its network.
LTC total supply
One of the main attractions of Litecoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, is that its supply is finite. Unlike fiat currency, which governments can print at will, Litecoin is only generated at regular intervals after a transaction is approved to be blocked into the network. In total, only 84 million Litecoins will be produced. Interestingly, this amount was the result of simple calculations on the part of the developers.
Basically, the developers decided that since Litecoin processes transactions four times faster than Bitcoin, it would be wise to provide four times as many tokens to the network. Importantly, this fixed amount of coins also means that inflation does not affect the overall value of the currency over time. The more time passes, the more each Litecoin becomes valuable. As of today, there are already over 65,177,458 Litecoins on the market.
Many traders consider Litecoin to be a more sustainable option within the market. Their views are not without reason. First, LTC often has lower volatility than its big brother Bitcoin. Also, this project’s development team has a slight advantage over Bitcoin’s development team. Specifically, LTC developers have proven time and time again their desire to stay ahead of their competitors technologically. This platform was the first to add the Segregated Witness update.
Furthermore, Litecoin started processing Lightning Network transactions several months before BTC. In May 2017, LTC adopted the Segregated Witness protocol, months before Bitcoin. That same year, the project’s development team also conducted the first Lightning Network transaction from Zurich, Germany to San Francisco.
History of Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin’s epic rise to fame began in October 2011 with the publication of the project’s whitepaper by a longtime Bitcoin researcher. charlie lee. It’s worth noting that Lee is a former Google employee and has been paying attention to Bitcoin since its early days. At the time, Lee recognized the value of Bitcoin, but realized there were several areas that, if improved, could foster large-scale blockchain adoption among the masses. Ta. Lee’s improvements focus on reducing transaction times, fees, and eliminating concentrated mining pools.
Impressively, it took Litecoin just two years to reach a market cap of $1 billion. This coin continues to dominate the market today. In particular, Litecoin reached an official all-time high of $360.93 on December 18, 2017. Incredibly, this value represents an 8200% increase compared to the token value just one year ago. At the time, Litecoin’s market value was only around $4.40.
In an interesting development, Lee decided to sell all of his Litecoin holdings in December 2017. At the time, Lee explained why he made that decision in a Reddit post. He said he was concerned about his growing influence on the platform. In his now-famous post, Mr Lee is quoted as saying: Some people think I’m shorting LTC. So, in a sense, it’s a conflict of interest for me to host LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence. ” Ultimately, he decided it was best to avoid the conflicts of interest that come with his position as LTC’s founder.
How to purchase Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin (LTC) can be purchased at the following exchanges:
Uphold – This is one of the top exchanges for US and UK residents that offers a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Germany and the Netherlands are prohibited.
Disclaimer: Terms apply. Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk. Do not invest unless you are prepared to lose all your invested money. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.
Coinbase – A public exchange listed on NASDAQ. Coinbase accepts residents from over 100 countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States (excluding Hawaii).
Kraken – Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the most trusted names in the industry, with presence in over 190 countries including Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States (excluding Maine, New York, and Washington). offers trading access.
How to mine Litecoin
Litecoin mining is very similar to Bitcoin. The network utilizes a consensus mechanism to ensure that the state of the network remains valid. However, unlike Bitcoin, Litecoin has abandoned the SHA-256 consensus mechanism in favor of a different protocol known as “crypto mining.” Litecoin proponents prefer LTC’s mining decentralization method of crypto mining, which is considered to be a more fair model. Scrypt allows you to successfully mine Litecoin on consumer hardware such as GPUs.
Importantly, you can also mine LTC on your Mac or Windows PC. Miners can choose to advance their tasks alone or with the help of a mining pool, but this is no longer possible with Bitcoin mining. Currently, Litecoin mining can be done on a regular home PC, but it is very time consuming. It is much smarter to purchase a mining rig that is specifically designed for the Scrypt mining algorithm. This strategy will give you better results and increase your chances of becoming the next miner to verify transactions and add them to the blockchain.
14,400 Litecoins are mined every day. This mining schedule corresponds to an LTC block being mined every 2.5 minutes. The node that adds the next block of transactions to the blockchain will receive a reward of 25 newly generated Litecoins. Similar to Bitcoin strategy, mining rewards are halved over time. In October 2015, Litecoin rewards were halved. Notably, the halving will continue periodically until the 84,000,000th Litecoin is mined.
Where can I store my Litecoin?
When it comes to storing your Litecoin, there is no shortage of options to consider. For small daily trading activities, you can leave your Litecoin in your exchange wallet. However, it is worth mentioning that this is currently the least secure way to store cryptocurrencies. The next option to consider is a PC or mobile wallet. Currently, there are many wallets that support Litecoin. In most cases, these wallets allow you to store your Litecoin alongside your other favorite cryptocurrencies.
If you are looking to invest a large amount in LTC or plan to hold this cryptocurrency for a long time, a hardware wallet is your best option. Hardware wallets store cryptocurrencies in offline “cold storage.” This strategy makes it impossible for online threats to access your holdings. The Ledger Nano S or the more advanced Ledger Nano X both support Litecoin (LTC).
litecoin trading
Trading Litecoin is the same as trading any top cryptocurrency. To gain a solid understanding of the current environment, you need to monitor the market. Additionally, monitoring news regarding Litecoin developments is also an important step. For example, this week Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law officially recognizing cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin.
LTC via CoinMarketCap
Positive news such as large-scale adoption or regulatory approval usually translates directly into profits for the coin. Conversely, if negative news is reported about the cryptocurrency market in general, you can sense an impending market loss. Surprisingly, analysts report that Litecoin tends to lead Bitcoin in terms of market movements. This initial move led many analysts to monitor Litecoin to get a better idea of Bitcoin’s potential market movements.
LTC continues to expand
Every week, Litecoin undergoes some form of expansion in its network or functionality. Just this week, kyber networkThe decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Ethereum-compatible pLTC token has been listed. Although this project is not directly Litecoin, it clearly uses the coin’s reputation and value as part of its strategy. The pLTC token is a Litecoin-pegged token that resides on the Ethereum blockchain. Sharply, pLTC is pegged 1:1 with Litecoin.
Officially, the token was launched on July 29, 2020 and aims to unlock liquidity within the sector by enabling more cross-chain asset trading. The development team of the pTokens project described this concept as yet another way for users to explore the world of decentralized finance. There are currently several pTokens in existence. Everything resides on the Ethereum blockchain but is anchored to the underlying digital asset.
today’s litecoin
Currently, Litecoin remains one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the world. The token is currently listed with a market price of $57.33 and a total value of $3,736,382,516 (335,419 BTC) via CoinMarketCap. It is impressive that LTC has remained a dominant player throughout the past five years, even as the overall functionality of the cryptocurrency space has begun to change. We hope that Litecoin continues to fill the important niche of turning silver into gold for Bitcoin for years to come.
