It’s the little brother to Bitcoin’s big brother. Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, just like Bitcoin. However, it was designed to be quicker at processing transactions than Bitcoin, hence the term ‘lite’.
Did you know?
Unlike Bitcoin’s creator, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, Litecoin’s creator, Charlie Lee is known, and is active on Twitter!
Who Invented it?
An ex-Google employee called Charlie Lee. He was a big fan of Bitcoin, but thought he could do make a better version, so he built Litecoin!
A brief history
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📡Charlie Lee released the software Litecoin is built on to a coding community on October 7, 2011.
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⚡Two days later, it went live.
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💸By November 2013, it was worth $1 billion.
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🗺️Today it’s considered one of the biggest currencies in the crypto world.
What’s so special about it?
In addition to the benefits of blockchain:
- 🚷Decentralised - no-one person or group owns or controls it
- 👯Trustless (peer-to-peer) - No more third parties
- ↔️Borderless - no need for exchanges to move currency across borders
- Immutability - It can never be changed or reversed unlike all of today's financial systems
- 🙅♂️Double-spending - it solved the problem many digital currencies had tried to crack
- 🔬 It’s a proof-of-concept for blockchain a technology that will change literally everything.
On top of all that, Litecoin's features make it:
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💨Super speedy. With Bitcoin, the average amount of time it takes to create a block in the blockchain is 10 minutes. With Litecoin it takes just 2.5 minutes.
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☕Designed for the everyday - it was designed for small transactions, like buying coffee and, thanks to its faster processing speeds.
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⛏️It uses a slightly different mining method to producing currency than Bitcoin.
Did you know?
Only 84 million LTC can ever be mined. At present two thirds have been ‘dug up’, and it will take roughly 100 years for the rest of the currency to be mined.
How is it produced?
It is mined in much the same way as Bitcoin.
Find out more about mining here.
Miners are trying to solve a very difficult puzzle, which in doing so, creates bundles of transactions or blocks on the blockchain. A miner is rewarded when they solve the puzzle.
The difference is the algorithm Litecoin asks its miners to use.
The algorithm used to mine Bitcoin allows miners to join forces - leading to the creation of mining pools. Litecoin’s algorithm however, makes that more difficult.
That means it’s easier for regular people to earn money from mining Litecoin.
Did you know?
Just 66 Litecoin addresses own 40% of all the Litecoin currently available. That’s more than $2 billion.
How do you get hold of Litecoins?
First you’ll need a wallet that can hold LTC.
Once you’ve got one of those, you’ll need to find a Litecoin Exchange that will let you buy and sell Litecoin.
What can you do with Litecoin?
Much the same as you can with Bitcoin. Although there aren’t quite as many sellers accepting Litecoin as they do Bitcoin, there’s still thousands worldwide.
Did you know?
Litecoin founder Charlie Lee sold all of his Litecoin in 2017 to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
The future
Litecoin has earned a reputation for adding new features quickly.
Apps like LitePay will let merchants accept payments from customers’ phones, so you’ll be able to pay for your shopping using crypto sooner than you think.
Right now it's a bit of a race for which currency will become the one we all use for everyday transactions. Right now it's an open race.
