Litecoin or LTC is considered to be one of the oldest cryptocurrencies in existence and is slowly making their mark in the world of cryptocurrencies. This particular cryptocurrency was first launched on October 7, 2011and was released by an open source client on GitHub by Charlie Lee, who was also a former Google Software engineer.
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Contents
- 1 What is Litecoin
- 2 What Makes Litecoin Different
- 3 How To Mine Litecoins
- 4 How To Buy Litecoin
- 5 Which are The Litecoin Wallets
- 6 What is Litecoin Block Explorer
- 7 Is There a Way To Use Litecoin to Transfer Money
- 8 How to Make Money With Litecoin
- 9 What are the Advantageous of Litecoin
- 10 Differences Between Litecoin and Bitcoin
What is Litecoin
A ‘Litecoin’ is a peer – to – peer or P2P (Peer – to – peer system means the exchange or share of data, information or assets between parties without the involvement of a central authority) cryptocurrency that enables instant, near zero cost payments to anyone in the world.
It is believed that Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin as it shares most of its characteristics with Bitcoin. However, as the name suggest, Litecoin is lighter, hence works faster and manifest in shorter block generation times of approximately 2.5 minutes. And as a result it cost lower transaction fees than Bitcoin. It is also a decentralized digital currency and uses the same encryption techniques to transfer and create a fund which means the funds can be transfer directly between individuals or businesses without the need for an intermediary such as a bank or payment processing service.
What Makes Litecoin Different
There are three things by which Litecoin can stand out which are:
- Speed
- Number of Coins
- Market Cap
Speed
Often Litecoin is referred as the brother of Bitcoin. However, there is little difference between the two. One of which is transaction speed. Litecoin give rise to blocks about four times faster than Bitcoin. It confirms the legitimacy of transactions a lot quicker as well as process a much higher number of them over the same time frame.
Number of Coins
If cryptocurrencies has value it is because of their limited supply. After mining a certain number of coins, there can be no more new coins after that. Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins and Litecoin has a limit of 84 million coins.
Market Cap
Litcoin’s market cap is less than that of Bitcoin. However, Litecoin still ranks amongst the top 5 cryptocurrencies at the time of publication.
How To Mine Litecoins
Just like the Bitcoins, Litecoins are also a decentralized system which is unlike centralized systems where the government decides where to print the paper money and how to distribute it.
To understand how Litcoin mining is different from Bitcoin mining, it is important to understand how cryptocurrency mining works.
Cryptocurrency mining includes two functions which are adding transactions to the blockchain (securing and verifying) and also releasing new currency. Also, individual blocks added by miners should contain proof – of work or POW. In short, the miners relaying transactions, validating signatures, putting them into a block, adding them into the blockchain and distributing them to all the people into the network, In exchange to this service they are rewarded by getting the authority to have transaction without any input.
Litecoin mining has a slight difference from the Bitcoin i.e. the hashing algorithm which is required to solve a block and also number of coins which are distributed each time after a block is solved is different.
As discussed above, Litecoin and Bitcoin differs as they use contrasting algorithms at the time of hashing.
How To Buy Litecoin
If you wish to own some Litecoins, however, don’t want to mine them, you can purchase them with another cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.
Again, purchase process of Bitcoin and Litecoin is similar. The exchanges today trade in both exchanges for a wire transfer or a credit or a debit card payment. Also the list of currencies with which you can buy Litecoin has grown significantly over the past year. However, Litecoin purchases are made with Bitcoin so far.
Note: You are required to store Litecoins. The original wallet for this currency is ‘Litecoin Core’ which you can install for free on your desktop. However, this downloads the entire Litecoin blockchain, so you’ll need to make sure you have enough storage].
Which are The Litecoin Wallets
As Litecoin is a cryptocurrency, hence it will also be stored in a digital wallet.
It has various kinds of wallets which include software based wallets as well which will reside on your computer or mobile device, as well as physical hardware device.
Another kind of wallet is ‘paper wallet’ which involves generating and printing out a private key on a computer not connected to the web as one of its steps.
Also, all these wallets have private keys which are required to receive and send coins to and from your Litecoin address.
What is Litecoin Block Explorer
Transactions of Litecoin cryptocurrencies are public and also searchable. To read or search for this individual block, transactions or even address balance is through a Litecoin Block Explorer.
Is There a Way To Use Litecoin to Transfer Money
Yes, it is possible to use Litecoin in order to transfer money. In fact, payments with Litecoin are comparatively fast and easy. You can keep the below mentioned points in mind in order to pay someone with Litecoin:
- Enter the person’s address into your wallet application, or scan the QR Code that corresponds to that address
- Enter the amount of Litecoin you’d like to send
- Click on Send
How to Make Money With Litecoin
Litecoin has gained a lot of popularity over the years and numbers of investors have also increased who are making money from the rise and fall of the cryptocurrency. With Litecoin, investors use a very popular strategy i.e. buying Litecoin and then reselling it when the price gets bigger. However, this strategy has its cons as well. Litecoin prices are extremely volatile, sudden rise can lead to sudden fall as well. Hence, it is important to be careful with the investments.
What are the Advantageous of Litecoin
Following are the advantageous with Litecoin as it has successfully activated SegWit:
- Instant Payments
- Scalability
- Low Cost
- Cross Blockchains
Differences Between Litecoin and Bitcoin
Though Litecoin shares most of the characteristics with Bitcoin, however, it also has slight differences as well, which are as follows:
Litecoin | Bitcoin | |
Founder | Charlie Lee | Satoshi Nakamoto |
Release Date | October 7, 2011 | January 9, 2008 |
Release Method | Genesis Block Mined | Genesis Block Mined |
Total Coin Supply | 84 Million | 21 Million |
Blockchain Protocol | Proof of Work (POW) | Proof of Work (POW) |
Usage | Digital Money (Silver) | Digital Money (Gold) |
Privacy | Yes | Yes |
Trackable | Yes | Yes |
Cryptocurrency Used | Litoshi | Satoshi |
Cryptocurrency Symbol | LTC | BTC |
Transaction Fee | 0.0001 LTC average | Varies based on load on blockchain |
Algorithm | Scrypt | SHA – 256 |
Blocks Time | 2.5 minutes | At least 10 minutes |
Mining | GPUs, Scrypt – ASIC miners | ASIC miners |
Segwit Scaled | Yes | Yes |