What Is Litecoin?
Litecoin (LTC) is a cryptocurrency that was designed to provide fast, secure and low-cost payments by leveraging the unique properties of blockchain technology. To learn more about this project, check out the deep dive of Litecoin. The cryptocurrency was created based on the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol, but it differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used, hard cap, block transaction times and a few other factors. They have a block time of just 2.5 minutes and extremely low transaction fees, making it suitable for micro-transactions and point-of-sale payments.
They was released via an open-source client on GitHub on Oct. 7, 2011, and the Litecoin Network went live five days later on Oct. 13, 2011. Since then, it has exploded in both usage and acceptance among merchants and has counted among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization for most of its existence.
Litecoin Coin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world. Litecoin is an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralized without any central authorities. Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances. Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency. With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.
| Coin Basic | Information |
|---|---|
| Coin Name | Litecoin |
| Short Name | LTC |
| Circulating Supply | 66,795,589.52 LTC |
| Total Supply | 66,795,590 |
| Source Code | Click Here To View Source Code |
| Explorers | Click Here To View Explorers |
| Twitter Page | Click Here To Visit Twitter Group |
| Whitepaper | Click Here To View |
| Support | 24/7 |
| Official Project Website | Click Here To Visit Project Website |
Who Are the Founders of Litecoin?
As they previously touched on, Litecoin was founded by Charlie Lee, an early cryptocurrency adopter and a name held in high regard in the cryptocurrency industry. Charlie Lee, also known as “Chocobo,” is an early Bitcoin miner and computer scientist, who was a former software engineer for Google. In addition, Charlie Lee held the role of director of engineering at Coinbase between 2015 and 2017 before moving on to other ventures.
Today, Charlie Lee is an outspoken advocate of cryptocurrencies and is the managing director of the Litecoin Coin Foundation—a non-profit organization that works alongside the Core Development team to help advance Litecoin. Besides Lee, the Foundation also includes three other individuals on the board of directors: Xinxi Wang, Alan Austin and Zing Yang — all of which are accomplished in their own right.
What Makes Litecoin Unique?
Behind Bitcoin, Litecoin is the second most popular pure cryptocurrency. This success can be largely attributed to its simplicity and clear utility benefits.
As of January 2021, This is one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, and more than 2,000 merchants and stores now accept LTC across the globe.
Its main benefit comes from its speed and cost-effectiveness.transactions are typically confirmed in just minutes, and transaction fees are nearly negligible. This makes it an attractive alternative to Bitcoin in developing countries, where transaction fees may be the deciding factor on which cryptocurrency to support.
In late 2020, Litecoin Coin also saw the release of the MimbleWimble (MW) testnet, which is used to test Mimblewimble-based confidential transactions on. Once this feature is available on the mainnet, The users will also benefit from greatly enhanced privacy and fungibility.
Community
Find support across a growing number of Litecoin communities:
- Litecoin Forums
- The Telegram
- Reddit Litecoin
- Search for Users on Twitter
- IRC FreeNode network channels #(for general users) and #litecoin-dev (for developers).
Resources
Find general information as well as a list of services and exchanges that support Litecoin at the Wiki. Up-to-date network statistics can be found at Block Explorer Charts. Source code for Core and related projects are available on GitHub.
Open Source Software
Litecoin Coin is an open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license which gives you the power to run, modify, and copy the software and to distribute, at your option, modified copies of the software. The software is released in a transparent process that allows for independent verification of binaries and their corresponding source code.
Blockchain
The Litecoin blockchain is capable of handling higher transaction volume than its counterpart – Bitcoin. Due to more frequent block generation, the network supports more transactions without a need to modify the software in the future.
As a result, merchants get faster confirmation times, while still having ability to wait for more confirmations when selling bigger ticket items.
Wallet Encryption
Wallet encryption allows you to secure your wallet, so that you can view transactions and your account balance, but are required to enter your password before spending litecoins.
This provides protection from wallet-stealing viruses and trojans as well as a sanity check before sending payments.
Mining Reward
Miners are currently awarded with 12.5 new litecoins per block, an amount which gets halved roughly every 4 years (every 840,000 blocks). The Litecoin network is therefore scheduled to produce 84 million litecoins, which is 4 times as many currency units as Bitcoin.
How Is the Litecoin Network Secured?
As a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, This is secured by incredibly strong cryptographic defenses — making it practically impossible to crack.
Like Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin uses the PoW consensus algorithm to ensure transactions are confirmed quickly and without errors. The combined strength of the Litecoin mining network prevents double-spends and a range of other attacks, while ensuring the network has 100% uptime.
Where Can You Buy Litecoin (LTC)?
Litecoin is one of the few cryptocurrencies with a wide variety of fiat trading pairs, and can be exchanged for U.S. dollars (USD), Korean won (KRW), euros (EUR) and more when you buy coin . Some of the most prominent names include Huobi Global, Binance, Coinbase Pro, OKEx and Kraken.
This is one of the few cryptocurrencies with a wide variety of fiat trading pairs, and can be exchanged for U.S. dollars (USD), Korean won (KRW), euros (EUR) and more.
To check Litecoin price live in the fiat currency of your choice, you can use CoinMarketCap’s converter feature directly on the currency page. Alternatively, use the dedicated exchange rate converter page. Popular price pairs include: LTC/USD, LTC/GBP, LTC/KRW and LTC/EUR.
