Litecoin is definitely the most famous Bitcoin fork. Released October 13, 2011, it was the first cryptocurrency implemented SegWit protocol. The LTC coin was a brainchild of former Google software developer Charlie Lee. The Litecoin name is referred to as ‘easy coin’ because it was actually created as a light version of Bitcoin: based on the same paradigm but technologically changed.
Read our Litecoin (LTC) Price Prediction for 2021
A Litecoin system is a peer-to-peer network consisting of a chain of interconnected blocks of transaction information. It is formed due to the voluntary support of participants who provide their computing power for processing transactions and generating blocks.
Before the implementing of Segregated Witness protocol, Litecoin already performed faster transactions than in the Bitcoin network. The time of confirmation differed significantly. So let’s find out all the details about Litecoin (LTC) cryptocurrency with Changelly!
Table of Contents
Litecoin (LTC) Value
The incredible success of Litecoin cryptocurrency was always reflected on its price. At the beginning of its path, Litecoin was worthy of only 4 dollars. However, LTC coin faced all the ups and downs during its history. In April 2017, the SegWit was activated, and the price soared instantly 10 times and reached $50 for one coin.
In December 2017, Litecoin (LTC) experienced the moment of glory. On December 12, the price cracked a record and tested $400 mark. It was an absolute historical maximum. The lowest point of the price was January 14, 2015, LTC was worth only $1.11.
Since the beginning of January 2019, the price of Litecoin (LTC) has dropped from $140. Now the coin is trading for $102.20.
You can check out the price-list formation and more details about the coin on BitcoinWiki.org.
Use Cases
Litecoin is often defined as digital silver, by analogy with Bitcoin, which some people consider as gold in the world of cryptocurrency (with its pros & cons, however).
On the other side, LTC isn’t just an instrument for saving & accumulation, it is used by many of different businesses around the world, both online and offline.
Take a look at the official website of the Litecoin Foundation and see for yourself – https://litecoin-foundation.org/businesses/.
Litecoin ATM Map
Source: coinatmradar.com
Blockchain Review
As it was mentioned before, Litecoin (LTC) is based on the Bitcoin protocol. Frankly saying, there are not so many differences between these two cryptocurrencies. The essence and purpose of Litecoin are similar to Bitcoin. This is a more convenient, fast and cheap means of payment than the usual national currencies. But there are still differences.
- Litecoin uses scrypt hash-function, whereas Bitcoin uses SHA-256. Scrypt is responsible for generating the key, which is able to require a big part of memory.
- Litecoin mining will stop when the total number of mined coins reaches 84 million. The limit number of Bitcoins is four times less – 21 million.
- In the Litecoin network, block generation occurs more frequently. In the Bitcoin blockchain, a new block appears every 10 minutes, and in the Litecoin network, this process takes only 2.5 minutes. As a result, transactions are processing four times faster and they are 3-4 times cheaper. There is also less transaction queue.
You can find all the additional information about Litecoin technical issues at the LitecoinWiki.
Litecoin Mining
Litecoin mining follows the Proof-of-Work algorithm. Current block reward in Litecoin ecosystem is 25 LTC. The mining of one block will enrich you for $2550 (today’s price is $102). To mine Litecoin properly, you need a GPU computer. However, it is possible to use ASIC-miners, which can get you more income.
GPU or ASIC works with a software program which unites with Litecoin blockchain in order to activate the mining process. LTC mining for rewards requires the use of ASIC miners, as the difficulty of the network is continuously increasing, the use of graphics processors is becoming disadvantageous.
Using ASIC miners for the Scrypt algorithm, there is more significant profit potential, especially when using multiple devices. The more ASIC is used for, the faster they will cover initial costs and come out in profit.
It is possible to mine Litecoin (LTC) solo or in pools.
Litecoin (LTC) Halving
Litecoin emission is 84 million coins. The reward for every found block is 25 LTC now, and it is halving in every 840 000 blocks. But why Litecoin needs the halving and how it influence on its price? Let’s see!
The previous halving took place on August 26, 2015, at block 840,000, and as a result, the reward decreased from 50 LTC to 25 LTC. On or about August 6, 2019, at block 1 680 000, the volume of regular emissions will be halved to 12.5 LTC.
Halving plays a big part in the systems with Proof-of-Work mining algorithm because this fact is reflected on the coin price. The process of halving is inornate: halving instantly reduces the reward for the mined block by half. The profitability of the extraction of PoW-cryptocurrency is easy to calculate. You need to divide the number of coins mined per day by the difficulty indicator.
Changing the degree of difficulty significantly affects the profitability of mining. Shortly before halving, if the Litecoin (LTC) price does not grow to such an extent as to adequately compensate for the decrease in rewards, then the users will have no interest in mining this cryptocurrency.
Miners’ rewards from fees are insignificant compared with the reward for mining Litecoin (LTC) blocks. The size of the reward depends on the LTC market rate, and not on transactional activity.
What are the consequences of the halving?
First of all, the price is rising during the first part of the year. Moreover, in less than six months, the Litecoin hash rate doubled, reaching maximum values in the entire history of this coin. But not everything is as good as it seems. On the contrary, the price of Litecoin (LTC) can drop in the long run.
Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, is counting down to the next halving of LTC on his Twitter:
Litecoin Roadmap
Litecoin Foundation published its latest roadmap at the end of the last year. They mentioned four things to be made in 2019:
- Attracting investors to Litecoin and the industry as a whole.
- Enabling of Atomic Swaps via Lightning Network.
- Litecoin was added to the roadmap of Rootstock, the company behind the sidechain Smart Bitcoin (SBTC). This means that users will be able to redeem their LTC to utilize it in ethereum-like smart contracts.
- Increasing fungibility. Developing the system of Confidential Transactions.
You can read the roadmap with comments from the team here.
Latest Litecoin News
The developers of cryptocurrency Beam based on the MimbleWimble protocol implemented support for atomic swaps for Bitcoin and Litecoin in the new client version.
The command line interface (CLI) allows you to place an order for an atomic swap. You must have a full Beam node and a full Litecoin node.
Litecoin (LTC) Wallets
The official website of Litecoin cryptocurrency offers several wallets:
- Litecoin Core. Created and maintained by Litecoin developers. This is a desktop client available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS. This wallet requires downloading the cryptocurrency blockchain to the user’s hard drive.
- Electrum. Lightweight wallet version for the PC. Does not require blockchain download, compatible with all popular platforms.
- LoafWallet is a mobile Litecoin wallet available for Android, iOS.
The list of cold wallets is really long, so you can choose one that suits you from the following list.
- Mobile wallets: Abra, Edge, Coinomi, Jaxx.
- Desktop wallets: Exodus, Litecoin-QT.
- Paper wallet: Liteaddress.org, a service that generates Litecoin private key.
For more security use hardware Ledger (Nano S/X) or Trezor (One/Model T) wallets.
Where to trade Litecoin (LTC)?
It’s easy to exchange LTC coin due to a significant number of platforms accepting this cryptocurrency.
| Exchange | USD | EUR | BTC | ETH | USDT | EOS |
| HitBTC | • | • | • | • | ||
| Upbit | • | • | • | |||
| Kraken | • | • | ||||
| Gemini | • | • | ||||
| Coingi | • | • | • | |||
| Bittrex | • | • | • | • | ||
| Bitstamp | • | • | • | |||
| Binance | • | • | • |
Buy Litecoin (LTC) at Changelly
Changelly platform offers you a way to buy LTC with your banking card swiftly, safely, and with minimal authentication procedure. The fiat payment process is powered by our partner Indacoin and takes just a few simple steps to take.
The purchase option is open both via our website and the Exchange Widget that can be found at our partners’ resources.
Litecoin Summary
All in all, Litecoin is one of the unconditional leaders among cryptocurrencies. The main reason for LTC coin success is the core of its technology that allows making transactions faster and cheaper within the network.
Litecoin (LTC) continues to attract investors because the developers go on improving the blockchain. They are not afraid of experiments with the subsequent implementation of new technologies.
Litecoin future, as well as any cryptocurrency, is not really defined. However, watching the past trends, one can only talk about the stability and success of LTC coin. The long and rich history of Litecoin and its forthcoming halving may strengthen its position among cryptocurrency giants. Well, we’ll see.
