Litecoin

What is Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin (LTC) is a peer-to-peer crypto asset that is essentially “lite” version of Bitcoin. Since it was developed based on Bitcoin, it has many features that are exclusive to BTC. However, it has a much higher transaction speed, different market capitalization, different hashing algorithm, lower transaction fees, and so on. Take a look at the Litecoin price chart above to see the current LTC price.

The Litecoin crypto project is open source. It was developed using MIT/X11 license which allows you to use, modify and duplicate the software, and distribute modified copies of the software at your discretion.

Compared to Bitcoin, the Litecoin blockchain can handle greater volume of transactions. The network can support more transactions without the need to change software in the future as blocks are generated more frequently. Overall, since it provides users with fast and inexpensive transactions, it is great for making microtransactions.

Litecoin History

The Litecoin crypto project was developed Charlie Lee (often known as Chocoboco) in October 2011. Computer scientist and Bitcoin mining innovator Charlie Lee previously worked as a software developer at Google. Additionally, Lee served as the CTO of Coinbase from 2015 to 2017.

Now together with Xinxi Wang, Alan Austin and Jin Yang, Charlie Lee manages Litecoin Foundation. To improve Litecoin, the Foundation is collaborating with the Litecoin Core development team.

Litecoin Mining

Essentially, Litecoin was designed to prevent monopolization of mining enterprises with extensive mining capacities. Short intervals between mining blocks allow more miners to mine blocks and receive mining rewards.

The biggest difference between Litecoin and Bitcoin is that Litecoin uses the Scrypt algorithm. instead of Bitcoin SHA-256 for mining. Because Scrypt primarily relies on fast computation, it allows the use of specialized hardware to achieve high hash rates.

Colin Percival developed the Scrypt algorithm as a password-based key generation function, and it was later adopted for Litecoin mining after adjusting some of its settings. The Litecoin crypto project was the first to use the Scrypt algorithm, but later several other projects used it.

However, Scrypt is still there Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm, but instead of focusing on pure CPU power (like SHA-256 does), it focuses on memory. This means that, essentially, Litecoin uses a PoW mechanism, but is capable of access massive amounts of memory, not just CPU or GPU processing power.

Litecoin transaction confirmation is fast and error-free thanks to the PoW consensus mechanism. Numerous attacks, including Double expenses attempts are prevented due to the reliability of the Litecoin mining network.

General, efficiency and accessibility — two main features of Litecoin. A Litecoin transaction typically takes less than a minute to confirm and the transaction fees are incredibly low. It is an excellent replacement for Bitcoin in countries where transaction costs may be a deciding factor when choosing a crypto asset to support.

Again, if you are interested in the current price of LTC, check out the Litecoin price chart above.

Options for using Litecoin tokens

Essentially, LTC coins are used to make various payments. There is even a Litecoin VISA card. This allows users to use Litecoin tokens to make purchases wherever VISA cards are accepted, which is almost everywhere.

In addition, Litecoin tokens can be used in a huge variety of dApps. You can use LTC tokens for in-store and online purchases. Speaking of dApps, there is one of them called SPEDN allowing users to spend Litecoin tokens without having to exchange them for USD or use the aforementioned Litecoin card. It allows you to spend LTC tokens simply by using your phone wherever Flexa is accepted.

Finally, another way to use LTC coins is buy gift cards on BitPay, eGifter and other similar platforms. These platforms offer a huge number of gift cards for purchases from various retailers, including Apple, Uber, Target, and so on.

Litecoin tokenomics

The maximum supply of Litecoin is 84 million tokens. Although over 72 million tokens have already been mined (as of May 2023), it is estimated that Litecoin will only reach its maximum supply around 2140 (just like Bitcoin).

It might not seem like it would take that long to mine an additional 12 million tokens, but Litecoin uses Bitcoin halving method. Thus, approximately every four years, the number of LTC tokens mined per block is halved. next Litecoin halving This is expected to happen in August 2023. This time the rewards for Litecoin blocks will be reduced from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC.

Initially, approximately 500,000 LTC tokens were pre-mined on the first day of release of the LTC Genesis Block. Early miners included Charlie Lee and other early Litecoin developers. However, they did not directly profit from Litecoin, they could only generate income through regular mining.

Litecoin’s initial price was $0.30 when it was listed on several cryptocurrency markets in 2011. Although a few years later it increased significantly during a massive price increase. bull run. From $0.30 it rose to $44.73. Unfortunately, a year later, the Litecoin price collapsed due to bear market And Hack Mt Gox leaving it at $2 to $4. After remaining this way for several years, the price of LTC rose again in 2017, reaching $358.34. However, it later collapsed again. See current LTC price above.

Mimblewimble update

The MimbleWimble (MW) testnet, which was used to test Mimblewimble-based private transactions, was released in late 2020. She was used to find a way increase the privacy and fungibility of Litecoin transactions. Several years later, on May 19, 2022, the long-awaited Mimblewimble Extension Block (MWEB) update was made public as part of the Litecoin Core 0.21.2 release.

MimbleWimble is a privacy-focused decentralized protocol.. The name of the protocol was inspired by the tongue-tiing curse from the Harry Potter books. The privacy feature allows users to hide transaction data. Although at the same time it lays the foundation for other blockchains to improve the usability of Litecoin tokens.

However, due to the Mimblewimble update Several South Korean exchanges delisted Litecoin immediately after its release (including Bithumb, Upbit and Korbit). This was due to the level of privacy and anonymity that Litecoin now offers users, making it impossible to comply with the Financial Transaction Specific Information Reporting and Use Act used in South Korea.