Often referred to as the ‘silver to Bitcoin’s gold,’ Litecoin stands out in digital currencies. Past performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future performance. The value of crypto assets can increase or decrease, and you could lose https://www.tokenexus.com/what-is-litecoin-and-how-does-it-work/ all or a substantial amount of your purchase price. When assessing a crypto asset, it’s essential for you to do your research and due diligence to make the best possible judgement, as any purchases shall be your sole responsibility.
In terms of value, ETH generally ranks in the top five and has more trading volume. Which is better depends on your interests, goals, and intended uses. However, it is still one of the most traded cryptocurrencies, maintaining a position within the top 15 coins out of the more than 10,000 tracked by CoinMarketCap. This demonstrates that it is still a popular cryptocurrency but doesn’t have the investor interest that Bitcoin and some newer coins have. Litecoin was released with 150 pre-mined coins and has a total supply of 84 million coins. The cryptocurrency’s blockchain generates a new block every 2.5 minutes.
Litecoin Use Cases
As we have a very limited number of past halving events in the case of Litecoin, the sample size is too small to accurately predict the future price movements of the coin. Therefore, it is important to maintain caution while approaching these assumptions. However, examining Litecoin’s price behavior during prior halving events could provide insight into how the market has traditionally responded. While past outcomes may not guarantee future results, they can provide some important information. MimbleWimble is a privacy protocol that builds on confidential transactions that encrypt or obscure information like transaction amounts.
As of the date this article was written, the author does not own Bitcoin or Litecoin. There were 73.83 million on Nov. 1, 2023, so as of that date, there were roughly 10.2 million left. The most significant difference between Litecoin and Bitcoin is its hashing function. As mentioned earlier, Bitcoin uses SHA-256, which is processed very quickly on the ALUs of graphics processing units and specialized machines. Litecoin was launched in 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, who announced the debut of the “lite version of Bitcoin” via a posted message on a popular Bitcoin forum. From its founding, Litecoin was seen as being created in reaction to Bitcoin’s tendency to gravitate towards centralization.
What Is Litecoin?
The best way to mine Litecoin is via Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). The device of choice for LTC right now is the Antminer L3++, but you can find a few alternatives below. Those calculations get more and more complicated as time goes on, limiting the influx of new Litecoin.
- Meanwhile, Litecoin has a maximum supply of 84 million coins, of which 72 million have already been mined as of December 2022.
- Transaction confirmation speeds play a huge role in how quickly a currency gets adopted.
- One of Litecoin’s goals is to distribute hash power more evenly than Bitcoin’s network.
- If you are really invested in the Litecoin community, you could also download the Litecoin Core wallet, and support the blockchain by acting as a full node client.
- Litecoin acts as a peer-to-peer crypto payment network and, owing to its higher transaction throughput, does a better job at this than Bitcoin.
- LTC is Atomic Swap compatible, which means that it can be exchanged for other currencies peer-to-peer without the need for a middleman like an exchange platform.
Thus, it can handle more transactions than Bitcoin, owing to the faster block time. Litecoin has a lower LTC/USD exchange rate and less purchasing power because it has a larger supply and lower demand than other cryptocurrencies. This is largely due to consumer and investor perspectives—if a means of exchange can purchase more goods, it is worth more. If a commodity or investment has a higher value for people, they will pay more for it. Bitcoin is currently perceived as a more valuable asset, so it is worth more. Miners who take part in it also create new Litecoins, which they are rewarded with for performing the service, along with a transaction fee.
The Upcoming Litecoin Halving and Its Possible Impact on the Price (
In 2021, it was among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization. But investors would do well to remember that the nature and history of the crypto market prove the coin can move up or down the list in the blink of an eye. Even without any additional scaling solutions on top of the Litecoin blockchain that reduce transaction times, it has a much lower block generation time than the Bitcoin network.
This matters because it makes mining less competitive, and the more competitive mining gets, the higher the transaction fees. One of Litecoin’s goals is to distribute hash power more evenly than Bitcoin’s network. This includes mining pools, mining groups, and a much smaller (and less decentralized) subset of miners. The cost of sending any denomination of LTC costs around $0.02, whereas Bitcoin currently hovers around $0.35.