Atomic swaps allow you to exchange different types of cryptocurrency peer-to-peer without using a centralised service like an exchange. Charlie has a master’s degree in computer science from MIT https://www.tokenexus.com/poly/ and worked as a software engineer for Google for almost 6 years. An avid poker player, he was one of thousands affected by the Black Friday crackdown on online poker by US authorities in 2011.
It’s all due to Litecoin’s upcoming halving event, scheduled to occur in August 2023. Regarding the event’s possible influence on the asset’s price, there have been a lot of speculations in the cryptocommunity. Litecoin is one of the first cryptocurrencies created after Bitcoin and still strives to be the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. While it seems to function very well for what it’s meant for, it’s interesting to consider situations where it could experience massive user adoption and growth. There isn’t much meat on the bones of whatever loyalists are chewing on, but it’s worth noting that it could only be a matter of time before more people start to add Litecoin into their portfolios.
Recent Litecoin User Reviews
Litecoin has a lot of amazing features, one of which is the Lightning network. It introduces an off-chain approach for small transactions which gives a solution to potential scalability issues. How it works is users open a payment channel between themselves and can transfer funds freely without miners. Transactions are recorded on a balance sheet which is signed by both parties after every movement of funds.
- It’s important to look at the differences in how both Bitcoin and Litecoin came about.
- Litecoin has four times the supply limit of Bitcoin’s 21 million, making it far less scarce than Bitcoin.
- Litecoin took its first steps towards integrating Mimblewimble back in October 2019, with the Litecoin Mimblewimble testnet launching in October 2020.
- Litecoin (LTC) has been around for a long time, has been battle-tested, has carved out a proven use case, has proven its demand drivers and is one of the top twenty coins listed on CoinMarketCap.
- Litecoin uses a hashing algorithm called Scrypt (pronounced es-crypt).
- Before you invest in Litecoin, learn how to buy Litecoin and read up on cryptocurrency wallets.
- BitDegree.org does not endorse or suggest you to buy, sell or hold any kind of cryptocurrency.
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 uses a hashing algorithm called Scrypt (pronounced es-crypt). But it found greater acceptance in the cryptocurrency community after the 2011 Tenebrix project modified Scrypt to work with regular CPUs for mining. Every 2.5 minutes, the Litecoin network generates a new block—a ledger entry of recent Litecoin transactions. The block is verified by mining software and made visible to any system participant who wants to see it.
CLAIM $600 REWARD
Of course, it offers a lot of security features from the Bitcoin network as well as a few of its own unique. Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin can be obtained from mining and has a halving mechanism that occurs every 840,000 blocks (roughly 4 years). The last LTC halving was in August 2019, where the block rewards were halved from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC. Despite Litecoin (LTC) being in the top twenty listed cryptocurrencies, it seems that consumers aren’t putting it in the same boat as other cryptocurrencies in the space.
That’s an enormous increase that shows that just because bitcoins are worth thousands of dollars, that Litecoin can’t also be a great store of value. Some, like its creator, would argue that Litecoin has a greater potential as a cryptocurrency because of its better transactional abilities. While that might not necessarily affect its value directly, it could make it more popular, which in turn creates its own potential for a value increase over time due to demand. Although What is Litecoin cryptocurrencies like Litecoin were originally intended to conduct transactions online, much like traditional currencies, their value does increase and decrease based on a number of market factors. Cryptocurrencies however, with their lack of governmental backing, tend to fluctuate far more — that’s why bitcoin and others have seen such an interest from mainstream investors in recent months. Litecoin is also a great cryptocurrency for giving ‘money’ to friends and family.
Is Litecoin Truly Decentralised?
An ex Microsoft employee, Charlie Lee, saw this issue and decided to create his own coin, called Litecoin. He used the Bitcoin code as a base and improved many aspects of it, making the new blockchain much faster than its predecessor. Litecoin was created to handle frequent small transactions and be easily tradeable.
- For example, if you’re selling your Litecoin on an exchange like Kraken, you’ll need to send your LTC to your Kraken address.
- With over 24,500 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap, what makes one stand out more than others?
- Simply choose your preferred exchange that offers Litecoin and set up your account.
- In a nutshell, it’s a cryptocurrency like many others, built on a similar framework and ideal as bitcoin itself.
- Exchanges both large and small sell Litecoin so you shouldn’t have any problems picking up some.
This slow transaction speed frustrates merchants who want to accept Bitcoin as payment. You can wait up to an hour, on average, for the six confirmations required for a Bitcoin transaction. Imagine buying something online using a credit card and being on that “your transaction is processing” screen for an entire hour. Released to the public in 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, Litecoin is an open-source global payment network not controlled by a central authority. On this date, the mining reward was reduced from 12.5 Litecoins per block to 6.25 Litecoins per block.