In this article, We learn about “Litecoin (LTC)”.Let’s Go!
Litecoin (LTC) is a cryptocurrency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world.
It was created in 2011 by former Google employee Charles Lee.
Litecoin functions similarly to Bitcoin, but the maximum number of coins that can be mined is higher. 84 million Litecoins will be produced, which is 4 times the monetary unit of Bitcoin.
One of the main reasons people buy Litecoin is that transaction transfer times are much less than Bitcoin, and transaction fees are only a fraction of Bitcoin.
Litecoin blocks are also created faster, every 2.5 minutes, while Bitcoin’s algorithm creates a block every 10 minutes.
It also offers features such as Segwit and Lightning Network, allowing for faster processing at a lower cost.
Why is Litecoin important?
The main advantage and main reason for many people to buy Litecoin is that it makes daily purchases of the cryptocurrency possible.
When Bitcoin prices were lower, it might have been possible to buy things quickly and cheaply, but at its all-time high in December 2017, buying a cup of coffee with Bitcoin would cost you over $30.
The bottom line is that transactions take at least an hour to process, and possibly longer — not ideal for everyday purchases.
The cryptocurrency community is actively trying to solve this problem through technologies such as the Bitcoin Lightning Network, but as of now, these protocols have not been fully implemented.
Litecoin, on the other hand, is designed to enable instant payments, with transaction verification taking minutes instead of hours, thus reducing transaction fees.
How does Litecoin work?
Many cryptocurrencies are created through a process called “mining,” which means computers on a network compete to solve computationally difficult puzzles, which serves the purpose of validating transactions.
Miners are rewarded for their work or for contributing comg power to the network by receiving newly issued cryptocurrency units.
This model of dedicating comg power to maintaining a blockchain and creating new cryptocurrencies is called Proof of Work, or PoW.
Once the network reaches consensus (which is what the mining process is all about) and transactions are recorded to the blockchain, it is very difficult to change or invalidate this work because making changes requires going back and redoing all the work that was done Already done.
The comg power and energy required to reverse a confirmed transaction makes it both practical and economically difficult to cheat a blockchain maintained by proof-of-work.
Both Bitcoin and Litecoin rely on Proof of Work, but they use different methods to complete this process, ultimately resulting in differences in transaction speed and cost.
Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm and requires expensive and sometimes hard-to-find ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) devices, while Litecoin can be mined on cheaper and more common GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) on computer graphics cards middle.
Litecoin runs on the so-called Scrypt algorithm, which does not allow the jump to mining on an ASIC setup, thus lowering the barrier to entry, at least initially.
Litecoin mining (as well as mining other cryptocurrencies) is becoming increasingly complex and expensive these days.
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