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Litecoin came out of nowhere and in a short time became one of the most popular, well-known, and valuable cryptocurrencies in the world.
Litecoin describes itself as follows: “A peer-to-peer Internet currency that allows almost zero commission payments to anyone in the world. Litecoin is an open-source global payment network that is completely decentralized as it has no central government. “
Litecoin is among the top 5 leading cryptocurrencies in the world by market capitalization, behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash.
Litecoin history
Litecoin appeared on October 7, 2011, making it one of the oldest cryptocurrencies. Its source code is a fork of the Bitcoin Core client with several notable changes and improvements, such as reduced block generation time, use of different hashing algorithms, and a reduction in the time it takes to process payments.
Litecoin team
Charlie Lee created Litecoin while working at Google. At Google, Charlie has worked on several well-known projects such as Google Play, Chrome OS, and YouTube. Lee left Google in 2013 to pursue Coinbase full-time. Coinbase is now one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. However, Charlie has already left her and devoted himself entirely to Litecoin.
Litecoin has a team of specialists working on various aspects of it.
How to buy and where to store Litecoins?
Litecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies available for purchase on almost any crypto exchange. Litecoins can be bought directly with fiat currency, unlike many other cryptocurrencies that are sold only for bitcoins (that is, you first have to buy bitcoins, and only then make an exchange for the digital currency you need).
There are various Litecoin wallets that are free to download. There are litecoin wallets for all operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Android, and Blackberry. In addition to the standard wallets, there are a few unusual ones such as Electrum LTC, LiteVault, and LiteAddress.
Electrum LTC is a lightweight wallet that does not require synchronization with the network in use. All you need is a 12-word password.
LiteVault is an online wallet that runs in a browser using cryptography built into it. This allows you to access your coins from any computer. For security reasons LiteVault cannot see your private keys.
Links to various wallets can be found on the Litecoin website .
How is Litecoin different from Bitcoin?
Since Bitcoin is the flagship in the world of cryptocurrencies, it is useful to compare Litecoin with it and understand in what parameters our hero is superior to the most famous digital currency.
Litecoin and bitcoin are almost identical in their purpose (if we consider the original purpose of bitcoin – making transactions). However, there are some notable differences in functionality.
To quote the Litecoin website, the differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin can be summarized as follows: “The Litecoin blockchain is capable of handling more transactions than the Bitcoin blockchain. With more frequent block generation, the network supports more transactions without the need for software modifications in the future. As a result, sellers receive payment confirmations quickly, but when selling large amounts, additional confirmations have to wait longer. ”
A quick overview of the advantages of Litecoin over Bitcoin
- Litecoin transactions are faster. Money sent via Litecoin usually appears in the wallet within a few minutes, while a Bitcoin transaction can take 10-15 minutes.
- Litecoin transaction fees are significantly lower. The larger the block, the more you have to pay miners for transactions. Litecoin has fewer blocks compared to Bitcoin, therefore miners charge less fees.
- Litecoin has notable technical improvements such as Segregated Witness (SegWit) and Lightning Network.
- Litecoin is better at handling high transaction volumes, and Bitcoin and Ethereum have had major problems with this in the past.
- In total, 84 million litecoins will be mined, which is four times the supply of bitcoins.
Why Litecoin?
Bitcoin faced a critical scalability issue. Even with the changes made on August 1, 2017, bitcoin will still never be able to serve an unlimited number of users. As Bitcoin’s popularity grows, so will transaction fees. This is not such a large amount when making rare and large transactions like buying a house or a car. But what about buying a cup of coffee?
Litecoin can solve all of these problems by offering inexpensive and instant transactions and being able to scale much more efficiently than Bitcoin. Litecoin will solve this problem by studying Bitcoin errors.
To explain the similarities and differences between the two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is usually compared to gold and Litecoin is compared to silver. Gold was traditionally used to accumulate and store in a safe place, while silver was smelted into coins and used for shopping.
The analogy with gold and silver applies to both the usefulness of the coin and its value. Since there will always be fewer bitcoins (like gold), the first cryptocurrency will be used less but cost more. There are more litecoins (silver), and they will be used more often, but they will cost less. Therefore, it is more likely that Litecoin will be used for small daily transactions in the future.
Consider whether it makes sense to pay for something with a small amount of gold. Imagine trying to pay gold dust for goods from a grocery store! Since silver is less valuable, it is easier to use for day-to-day transactions.
In theory, you can use both gold and silver. You can buy a house with a truckload of silver coins (litecoins) or one gold bar (bitcoin). You will end up with the same result.
The future of Litcoin
Litecoin has all the functionality of bitcoin with notable improvements. It is possible that over time, Bitcoin and Litecoin could become the gold and silver standards, not only for purchases but for all cryptocurrencies and tokens. In the future, when you need to purchase a different type of digital asset or a physical product, you can simply swap the coins you already have for what you need.
A good analogy is buying fuel for a car. Having a car doesn’t mean you should buy barrels of crude oil. You just stop by a gas station and exchange your money for what you need, when you need it.
Before the hype in the press around Bitcoin and Ethereum, Litecoin had every chance of becoming the global cryptocurrency standard. One day, digital currencies will be officially recognized, and this issue will return to the agenda.