Litecoin ( LTC) is widely believed as the first altcoin cryptocurrency. It was introduced on October 13, 2011, to be “the gold to Bitcoin’s silver” and is still one of the top cryptocurrency markets in market capitalization.
Like Bitcoin ( BTC), Litecoin runs on an open-source blockchain that isn’t governed by any official authority. Each Litecoin node owner keeps a copy of every Blockchain to guarantee that any new transactions don’t conflict with its transactions’ history. Miners assist in processing new transactions by incorporating them into the newly created blocks.
Litecoin, along with Bitcoin, does have some important distinctions. Transactions are more efficient on Litecoin, while Bitcoin is more plentiful. It utilizes a different hashing algorithm that keeps mining equitable for all users. These variations are believed to aid in helping LTC gain traction and continue to be among the top cryptocurrency choices over the decades.
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The Litecoin Timeline
Since its 2011 launch by Charlie Lee, Litecoin has grown to become one of the most popular altcoin currencies that many people consider to be superior to Bitcoin. Like other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin has been impacted by the market’s volatility. It has several characteristics with bitcoin and was developed using bitcoin’s code. The major intent behind the creation of Litecoin was to speed up Bitcoin transactions.
Litecoin reached its lowest point of the year in December 2020, when you could have purchased 1 Litecoin for merely 5,626 rupees, even though it concluded the year 2020 with 9,849 rupees. Since then, the graph has been unsteady, reaching a peak value of 32,196 rupees at the start of October 2021. One reason why Litecoin is used for transactions rather than as a long-term investment is the volatility. You can keep a few in your phone’s hot wallet, which you may use to make regular purchases.
Who invented Litecoin and the reason for it?
Litecoin was invented in 2011 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Charlie Lee. Lee is a former Google engineer who was fascinated by Bitcoin in the year 2011. He later, after launching Litecoin, joined the crypto exchange Coinbase as the director of engineering in 2013.
After joining the crypto exchange, Lee decided to largely put off the creation of Litecoin. In the beginning, Lee said that he thought it was crucial to help those who “own Bitcoin and hold Bitcoin” since the cryptocurrency “wasn’t yet ready” to scale up.
In late 2017 Lee was forced to leave the company to fully pursue LTC’s development. He is now the director of management for the Litecoin Foundation, a non-profit committed to supporting cryptocurrency.
On December 17, 2017, Lee disclosed that he had sold and given away all of his LTC after being frequently blamed for tweeting on cryptocurrency to gain personal benefits. Litecoin was trading at a record highest level of around $350, and Lee’s actions were extensively criticized.
One week before LTC was launched, Lee released its source software and binary so users could play around with it before launch. The date of its launch was determined through a poll of the Bitcointalk forum so that members could select the date “that most suits their needs.” Anyone was allowed to begin mining simultaneously since they were aware of the date for the launch and were required to make an easy change to their file to begin mining actual LTC.
However, it came with an unspecified premise. A total was 150 LTC were premined for the first block to be mined — the first block to be added to the network and two more blocks to verify its legitimacy were first mined. When Litecoin first launched, the reward for mining a block of 50 LTC which was, in essence, useless at the time.
There are differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin.
However, Litecoin was created to be an online “silver,” just like BTC. It’s a blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency developed to address the perceived flaws in Bitcoin.
The goal was to allow retailers to process LTC transactions by making them quicker than those made on bitcoin. Bitcoin blockchain. On average, a Litecoin block takes about two and an hour to mine, which is a quarter of the time it takes Bitcoin to mine. Businesses that accept only secure transactions do not need to wait all day for six confirmations from the network.
Although there is a security risk, merchants can also be patient and wait for confirmations from the network to ensure security when using the cryptocurrency Litecoin. Since blocks are four times more efficient with Litecoin, the time it takes to mine through its network increases, approximately every three and three and a half days.
Litecoin introduces new functions.
Initial efforts by Bitcoin were backed by introducing various aspects suggested and later adopted in the Bitcoin network. These enhancements usually aid in ensuring that the Bitcoin network can grow to handle more transactions per second without compromising decentralization and guarantee privacy while conducting transactions. Litecoin (LTC) is readily available on all leading cryptocurrency exchanges, DEXs Digital wallets, and some online payment services. One of the easiest methods to purchase LTC is through KuCoin; the second option is altcoin exchange, which is as simple as transferring your cryptocurrencies from your external wallet to your trading account. Now headed towards Litecoin features.
Segregated witnesses (Segwit)
Bitcoin as well as Litecoin are a bit alike and, as such, may have the same upgrade options. Litecoin typically adopts the first since a severe mistake on its network will result in less harm than its Bitcoin network. The market capitalization of Litecoin has always been much larger than the value of Bitcoin.
A feature that was the first to be implemented to the Litecoin blockchain before being added to Bitcoin included Segregated Witness (SegWit). While SegWit was initially proposed to Bitcoin in 2015, Litecoin implemented the technique at first. Since no major issues were reported on LTC, it was introduced to Bitcoin.
SegWit helps the cryptocurrency scale by “segregating” each transaction’s digital signature information on every deal (the witness) from the rest and making the most efficient use of the small space. It was designed to solve the issues of scaling Bitcoin.
Lightning Network
Lightning Network Lightning Network can be described as an efficient scaling solution that adds a layer to a cryptocurrency’s Blockchain where transactions are swift and fees are low. This layer is comprised of payment channels that users create. The idea was initially to be integrated into Bitcoin. Bitcoin blockchain.
Similar to SegWit, it was first introduced using Litecoin, which was used by many to evaluate Lightning Network in a real economic setting. The layer two scaling technique is not without controversy. According to some critics, it relegates users to non-custodial wallets in which the user would be required to operate their wallet.
Conclusion
Litecoin is a very liquid cryptocurrency found on the most important cryptocurrency exchanges, making it perfect for traders. Since transactions through its network are quite low, many people use it to transfer funds between various lenders or exchanges to avoid the high transaction costs for networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The Litecoin network handles more than 100,000 transactions and typically has between 200,000 and 300.000 active accounts. Although it’s not as well-known as Bitcoin, it isn’t as crowded. Bitcoin networks, the utility is undeniable.
