Today we’re going to talk about Litecoin, the lightweight version of Bitcoin, Bitcoin’s athletic brother, the Usain Bolt of cryptomontages. I could go on giving examples but they would be worse and worse, so let’s get to the point: What is Litecoin?
Litecoin (LTC) is the first altcoin in history, the first alternative to Bitcoin created in October 2011 by Charlie Lee (a former Google worker who decided to quit his job to dedicate himself 100% to the development of Litecoin).
Has he regretted it? No, I think not, since as of today LTC has a market capitalization of $2,820,078,668 USD (yes, I don’t know how to pronounce that figure either).
Litecoin’s main idea is to be a currency with all the benefits that Bitcoin offers but without any of those little problems that N1 crypto faces in the market. Such is the similarity between the two that Litecoin is simply a fork in the Bitcoin Core software, so it’s almost a direct copy of Bitcoin.
Differences between Bitcoin and Litecoin
Although they are two currencies that share much of the code, they have differences that separate them, like two twin brothers after the age of 15:
– Number of coins
The Bitcoin issue has a limit of 21 million BTC, while Litecoin quadruples that limit and will reach its peak when 84 million LTC are produced.
The protocol states that there will be a Litecoin halving approximately every 4 years, after a certain number of blocks have been created. For litecoin this amount is 840,000.
– Speed
The block generation is 4 times faster than Bitcoin, which means that in Litecoin a block is generated every 2.5 minutes as opposed to the 10 minutes it takes for a Bitcoin block.
– Scalability
While Bitcoin supports a maximum of 7 transactions per second, Litecoin multiplies that amount by 8, so a maximum of 56 transactions per second can be processed. This avoids network congestion and significantly improves scalability for wider adoption.
– Mining
Litecoin uses the Proof of Work system, just as Bitcoin does, but with differences in the hardware used for mining. Due to the uneven growth in the difficulty of mining both cryptosystems, the requirements are a little less when it comes to obtaining LTCs.
What is the price of Litecoin?
In December 2017, good news arrived for LTC as its price had reached “moon” and was worth £306.08, in what would be its historical high so far. After a steep fall (accompanied by most cryptosystems) today the price of litecoin in euros is £40.78.
It’s worth remembering that Litecoin, is divided into litoshis in a very similar way to Bitcoin is divided into Satoshis. But how many litoshis is Litecoin?
To make it simple, 1 litoshi is equivalent to 0.00000001 LTC.
If you can’t currently afford a whole unit, there are Litecoin faucets that will allow you to earn large amounts of litoshis with minimal effort. The most famous are MoonLitecoin or Free-Litecoin.
Litecoin Wallets
Fortunately, there are many wallets for Litecoin and the choice of the best wallet will depend on the particular needs of each person.
We will review the most used Litecoin wallets for you to choose from:
Harware Wallet:
– Ledger Nano X
– Ledger Nano
– Trezor Model T
– Trezor Model One
Desk wallets:
– Electrum LTC
– Atomic
– Jaxx Liberty
– Exodus
– Litecoin Core
Mobile wallets:
– LoafWallet
– Atomic Portfolio
– Jaxx Liberty wallet
– Coinomi Wallet
– Edge Wallet
Paper wallets:
– LiteAdress
How to mine Litecoin?
Like Bitcoin mining, Litecoin mining uses the Proof of Work system. The main difference lies in the software used to mine it.
If you’ve read the article on Bitcoin mining, you’ll remember that cryptomoney can no longer be mined with a processor and graphics card (actually it can, but it’s not profitable).
However, the evolution of litecoin has not yet been so great that it suffers from the same problem. Bitcoin’s lightweight sister, it can now be mined with a processor and graphics card.
Although it’s also worth mentioning that there are specific ASICs to mine this cryptomoney and the future of Litecoin mining may suffer the same fate as Bitcoin.
How to acquire Litecoin?
There are several ways to acquire LTC:
– You can accept Litecoins as payment for goods and services.
– You can tell your boss that you want your salary at LTC (and see his “What the hell are you talking about?” face).
– You can start mining Litecoin.
– Or you can make it simpler and buy Litecoin online from Bitnovo, the number one platform on the Milky Way* for buying crypto-currencies with debit or credit cards.
*We can’t guarantee that outside the Milky Way there isn’t a planet with a better platform than ours where you can buy crypto-currencies with a card just by lifting your thumb or shouting a Real Madrid goal.
