Litecoin (LTC)

What’s Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin (LTC) is one of the oldest, and at the same time, most popular cryptocurrencies in the world. It was very quickly announced to be a Bitcoin younger brother. Of course, not because it was created just a few years after Bitcoin, but because it uses the Bitcoin source code. Despite the differences between these two cryptocurrencies, they have a few important features in common.  

Interesting: The Litecoin advocates often call it a digital silver. It also a direct reference to a digital gold – Bitcoin.

Who’s the Litecoin creator?

There is no anonymous person, standing behind this cryptocurrency. Its creator 
is a programmer called Charlie Lee. He has a vast experience. He’s been working for the tech giant Google for 10 years, being responsible for coding the Chrome operating system. He did not have any interest in Bitcoin until 2011, but then very quickly decided to design a similar cryptocurrency. Of course, since the very beginning, Lee claimed, that he does not want to compete with the digital gold, but wanted to give life to a currency that could bring something new to the market. Therefore, Litecoin was supposed to be used for smaller transactions, like online shopping.

When the cryptocurrency was first issued, Lee was working for one of the most popular cryptocurrency stock exchange – Coinbase. The LTC creator left the company in 2017, to focus solely on Litecoin. During spring of 2018 the cryptocurrency has suddenly reached an amazing success. That is when the cryptocurrency community heard a rumor, that Lee is planning on leaving Litecoin. This was in fact the truth, the programmer intended on doing that, mainly because he was aware that his involvement will forever keep the project from reaching a full decentralization. However, that is still the case. Lee did not make any declarations, on when he’s planning to leave the project behind. 

Litecoin vs. Bitcoin - differences

It’s worth to know, that Litecoin is different form Bitcoin in a few aspects. In case of Litecoin new blocks are generated every 2,5 minutes, so LTC transactions are confirmed much quicker that the BTC ones. And the LTC supply is 4 times bigger than the total quantity of Bitcoin ever possible to excavate.

Mining – the LCT excavation process, is also very different that the BTC one. The difference is, that in Litecoin the SHA-256 algorithm has been replaced by Scrypt. This alternative solution was designed to support mainly GPU and CPU miners. 

Litecoin mining. How to excavate LTC?

Thanks to the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm the Litecoin net is decentralized. As for Bitcoin, to mine for LTC miners require specialized equipment called cryptocurrency excavators. These machines use their computing powers to solve complicated mathematical equations. For excavating one block a prize of 12,5 LTC is granted.

Litecoin halving – what is that?

Halving is an occurrence taking place every 840 LTC blocks excavated. It’s a cyclical process, occurring, more or less, once in 4 years. It follows the same rules as the Bitcoin halving. The prize the miners receive for their work is cut in half each time.

This process will take place until all LTC coins are excavated. In its history, LTC went through two halvings already. As a result of the first one, the prize for excavating one block of the cryptocurrency, was decreased from 50 LTC to 25LTC. Currently, it’s only 12,5 LTC.

Why halvings take place? That’s because they make the currency deflationary. As the effort of excavating one LTC is increasing, but the prize for it is decreasing, it is not possible to excavate all the Litecoins at once. This causes the supply to reduce and the price to grow. 

LTS charts. Exchange rates and forecast

The current Litecoin price is around 71 USD (as of 05.02.2020). The cryptocurrency market capitalization is 4 585 341 906 USD. Right now, LTC is ranked 7 in the CoinMarketCap rating. Its ATH, the highest price, was registered on 19th December 2017. The exchange rate at the time was 375,29 USD. Ever since then, the Litecoin price did not reach this level. 

Which stock exchanges are listing LTC?

As it’s quite popular Litecoin is listed on multiple stock exchange. Currently on 139. LTC cryptocurrency can be purchased on the most popular platforms, like: Binance, OKEx, Huobi, Coinbase Pro, Bitfinex, Kraken, Kucoin and many others.

LTC wallets. Which Litecoin wallet to choose

If you’re considering Litecoin purchase, you need ensure you’ll use a suitable cryptocurrency wallet. Keeping your funds on stock exchange or other platforms is not a sensible solution. Because of the massive amount of assets located on these, they’re prone to cyber-attacks. They often just simply go bankrupt. 

Safety is fundamental, so it’s worth considering a wallet without a direct Internet access. The best would be a cold cryptocurrency wallet, like a hardware wallet – present is physical form, needs to be purchased, or a paper wallet – public and private address generated on a special web side and printed on a piece of paper, they are free of charge. 

There are also hot wallets. They are called like that, because they are directly connected to the Internet. Desktop wallets can be downloaded and installed on your PC. Browser wallets are simply web sides, where you create an account – but their disadvantage is the fact the private keys are under the control of these platforms. You can also consider mobile wallets – mobile applications intended for storing your cryptocurrencies. It’s a comfortable solution, but the least safe one. 

No matter which wallet you choose, you need to keep your funds safe and secure. Remember to never disclose your private key to anyone. Otherwise, you will lose the access to your own cryptocurrencies. If you decide to purchase a hardware wallet, order it directly from the manufacturer. Do not use the services of third parties, it’s possible that somebody modified the wallet, to steal from you. 

In case of the paper wallet – always generate the addresses in a safe, offline environment, so that they cannot be intercepted. When it comes to hot wallets – download the setup files from trusted sources only. Do not install anything that seems suspicious to you. Always check the reviews. It’s quite common to find fake applications posing as the valid ones. 

If you intend to invest significant funds in cryptocurrencies, it’s better you use cold wallets. In case of hot wallets, the risk of cyber-attack and private key theft is much higher. 

By: Karolina Kropopek