Litecoin: A Complete Guide to the Digital Silver of Cryptocurrency
Litecoin, like Bitcoin before it, is an open-source, peer-to-peer digital electronic cash system that involves a decentralized cryptographic protocol and a native cryptocurrency. If Bitcoin is the equivalent of digital gold, then Litecoin would be digital silver.
Litecoin is a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, therefore its code is very similar to Bitcoin’s. It was also among the first early spinoffs of Bitcoin that helped spark the trend of thousands of additional altcoins being created that flood the market today.
Litecoin was designed to address some of Bitcoin’s shortcomings, namely, its speed. Litecoin offers decreased block generation time, which offers faster transaction confirmations — roughly every 2.5 minutes to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.
Despite key differences, the two cryptocurrencies share a wealth of similarities and often Litecoin serves as a test net for second-layer technologies such as Segregated Witness and the Lightning Network, before they are brought to the Bitcoin community.
The Creation and History of Litecoin
A young Google engineer and MIT graduate by the name of Charlie Lee became interested in cryptocurrencies and blockchain shortly after the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin whitepaper and Bitcoin Core client into the wild in 2009. After spending much of his free time coding, and a failed attempt at trying to save a coin called Fairbrix, Lee decided to fork the original Bitcoin Core client, alter the code slightly, and address some of what he viewed as the challenges Bitcoin faced — primarily its transaction speed.
Lee launched the Litecoin network in October 2011, less than two years after the Bitcoin whitepaper was released. Since then, it has long been among the most successful and prominent cryptocurrencies across the entire industry, earning it a spot amongst the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap alongside, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.
Litecoin was envisioned to compliment Bitcoin, not replace it, and given the fact that Bitcoin is valued in the thousands and therefore makes it a better store of value than transactional currency. Litecoin, however, is best used for everyday transactions such as groceries, gas, and bills, while Bitcoin some day may be used to purchase real estate, and more.
Litecoin recently made news for becoming the first-ever cryptocurrency to partner with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as sponsor.
Important Figures Behind Litecoin
Charlie Lee: The man known on Twitter as “Satoshi Lite” a nod to the original creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is a polarizing figure in the crypto industry.
Many love him, more love to hate him. At the top of the last crypto bull market, Lee famously called the “top” warning investors of a crash, and sold off all of his Litecoin holdings over a potential “conflict of interest.” However, the crypto industry saw this as Lee abandoning his own project, and it’s followed him since.
Lee graduated MIT with a master’s degree in computer science in the year 2000, and later worked for Google as an engineer, working on the Chrome OS that’s widely used today. Lee later became interested in Bitcoin and blockchain.
In 2013, after releasing Litecoin in 2011, Lee left Google to work for Coinbase before the exchange began listing the cryptocurrency he had crated. Eventually, Lee left Coinbase to launch The Litecoin Foundation where he currently serves as the Managing Director overseeing the Litecoin project.
The Litecoin Foundation: While Charlie Lee is the primary person behind Litecoin, he has since launched The Litecoin Foundation and built a team of industry talent to further develop Litecoin and push it toward adoption.
The Litecoin Foundation is dedicated to establishing partnerships such as the groundbreaking UFC sponsorship that put Litecoin in front of millions of viewers, as well as driving Litecoin toward usability and mainstream adoption.
Key team members include Xinxi Wang, Franklyn Richards, David Schwartz, and many more.
The Technical Details of Litecoin
Litecoin’s code is similar to Bitcoin due to it being a fork of the original Bitcoin Core client Litecoin creator Charlie Lee launched Litecoin in 2001 in an effort to speed up cryptocurrency transaction times and address other concerns he had with Bitcoin’s shortcomings. Litecoin’s protocol processes a block every 2.5 minutes, whereas Bitcoin takes 10 minutes to process a block. The faster block confirmation leads to faster transactions.
Litecoin also uses scrypt as its proof-of-work algorithm instead of Bitcoin’s SHA 256, making Litecoin more complicated to mine for than Bitcoin. Scrypt is also said to create a faster and safer transaction, also reducing fees in the process.
Each successfully confirmed block rewards Litecoin miners with 25 LTC. The block reward is halved at regular intervals, until the final Litecoin is mined. Litecoin’s next halving is in August 2019, which has driven increased interest in Litecoin as the supply miners receive will soon be diminished.
There are currently roughly 62 million Litecoin’s in circulation, with a max supply of 84 million LTC, compared to Bitcoin’s 21 million. Litecoin is divisible by one, one-millionth, or down to 8 decimal places with the lowest unit of measurement being 0.00000001 called a photon.
Litecoin Technical Stats:
Genesis Block Date: 8th Oct 2011
Creator(s):Charlie Lee
Type: Mineable Coin
Consensus Mechanism: Proof of Work (PoW)
Ability to Create Other Tokens: No
Current Transaction Speed: 56 Transactions Per Second
Source Code Forked by Other Cryptocurrencies: LitecoinCash
Total Amount to Ever be Created: 84,000,000
Current Mining Reward: 25 LTC (approx. $3,000)
Time Between Rewards:approx. 1.5 minutes
Total Percentage of Bitcoins Mined So Far: 69.187%
The Financial Metrics of Litecoin:
Current LTC Circulation Supply: 62,471,376 LTC
Current LTC Market Cap: $7,533,564,577 USD
All-Time High Price:$375.29
All-Time High Date:19th December 2017
Current 1-Year LTC ROI: +51.07%
Current 5-Year LTC ROI:+1438.69%
Total Number of Litecoin Addresses: 73,856
Where Litecoin is Today and Where it Will Be Tomorrow
Litecoin is currently trading at $120 per LTC and is less than two months away from its “halving” event where the supply miners receive is cut in half. The reduction in the supply often throws off the delicate balance of supply and demand, which increases the price of the asset significantly.
Litecoin is one of the longest running cryptocurrencies which gives it additional trust and brand power within the market. Through strong partnerships, and continued development by The Litecoin Foundation, Litecoin will only grow in the years ahead.
During 2017, Litecoin price rose from $3 to over $300. At current prices, a similar rise would put Litecoin at $1,200 during the next cycle high. Litecoin’s continued presence in the top 10 cryptos by market cap gives Litecoin additional visibility and market strength, and makes it among the safer long-term investments in the crypto space.
In 2019 so far, Litecoin has vastly outperformed the rest of the crypto market. While Bitcoin has risen 315% from its 2019 low to high, Litecoin has risen 403% in the same period of time, showing the potential Litecoin offers investors. Interestingly, Bitcoin has reclaimed as much as 75% of its all-time high price, Litecoin is currently only roughly one-third of its all-time high price, showing it still has far more room to climb to catch up to Bitcoin.
