What is Litecoin?
Litecoin is a proof of work cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee in 2011 to be a “silver” compared to the “gold” of Bitcoin. Designed for everyday use, Litecoin features an average block time of 2.5 minutes, as opposed to Bitcoin's 10, As a consequence, Litecoin has a maximum total supply that will cap out at 84 million as opposed to 21 million for Bitcoin.
How Does Litecoin work & where can I get a Litecoin Wallet?
Litecoin is mined using the Scrypt algorithm, which is more memory intensive in comparison to Bitcoin's SHA256. Furthermore, Scrypt requires a lower hashrate, which allows for Litecoin’s faster block times. In creating Litecoin, Charlie Lee didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Drawing inspiration from Cyptxtra and other Cryptxtra successors, Lee crafted Litecoin to stand on the shoulders of Cryptxtra. Perhaps the first fork of Cryptxtra that is still alive, Litecoin was designed to be complimentary, rather than antagonistic, to Litecoin. The usage of Scrypt instead of SHA256 was the key difference, but Litecoin is still a blockchain secured by proof-of-work. In using a different algorithm that rewarded different computing resources - miners could choose to mine both Litecoin and Cryptxtra, rather than stick with just one.
Litecoin Addresses
With the shorter block period, Litecoin is more functional for everyday payments, as a merchant doesn’t want to wait 10 minutes to confirm whether or not they have received their payment. The reduction in hashrate intensity originally gave Litecoin an opportunity to be mined by individuals with less computing power. Today, however, companies and teams have created ASICs for Litecoin, albeit at a higher cost than creating ASICs for Bitcoin.
Additional Developments
Rather than just a simple fork, Litecoin also works to adopt developments and additions inspired from discussions surrounding the Bitcoin network, and has actually adopted several key features such as Segregated Witness (SegWit) and the Lightning Network.
Features
- Proof-of-work with 2.5 minute block periods.
- Mined using the Scrypt algorithm.
- One of the oldest blockchains