There are 180 internationally recognized currencies in circulation, ranging from the Samoan tala to the Burmese kyat. Just like with regular currency, there are multiple too. Because it was the first, gets all the publicity, but it competes against dozens of aspiring alternatives—one of which is. Measured by market capitalization (or the amount of currency on the market), litecoin is the third largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin and XRP. Litecoin, like its contemporaries, functions in one sense as an online payment system. Like PayPal or a bank’s online network, users can use it to transfer currency to one another. 1 Hash Asch XAS Mining. Only instead of using U.S.

Dollars, it conducts transactions in units of litecoin. That is where litecoin’s similarity to most traditional currency and payment systems ends. ( Related ) How Litecoin Is Made Like all cryptocurrencies, litecoin is not issued by a government, which historically has been the only entity that society trusts to issue money. Instead being regulated by a Federal Reserve and coming off a press at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, litecoins are created by the elaborate procedure called, which consists of processing a list of litecoin transactions. Unlike traditional currencies, the supply of litecoins is fixed. There will ultimately be only 84 million litecoins in circulation and not one more. Every 2.5 minutes (as opposed to 10 minutes for bitcoin), the litecoin network generates a what is called a —a ledger entry of recent litecoin transactions throughout the world. And here is where litecoin’s inherent value derives.

The block is verified by mining software and made visible to any “miner” who wants to see it. Once a miner verifies it, the next block enters the chain, which is a record of every litecoin transaction, ever. Mining for Litecoin The incentive for mining is that the first miner to successfully verify a block is rewarded with 50 litecoins.

Learn how to mine litecoin with this beginners guide. How Bitcoin Mining Works By confirming transactions; How to Set Up a Bitcoin Miner Generate bitcoins yourself.

The number of litecoins awarded for such a task reduces with time. In October of 2015 it will be halved, and the halving will continue at regular intervals until the 84,000,000 th litecoin is mined. But could one unscrupulous miner change the block, enabling the same litecoins to be spent twice? The scam would be detected immediately by some other miner, anonymous to the first. The only way to truly game the system would be to get a majority of miners to agree to process the false transaction, which is practically impossible. Mining cryptocurrency at a rate worthwhile to the miners requires ungodly processing power, courtesy of specialized hardware.

To mine most cryptocurrencies, the central processing unit in your Dell Inspiron isn’t anywhere near fast enough to complete the task. Which brings us to another point of differentiation for litecoins; they can be mined with ordinary off-the-shelf computers more so than other cryptocurrencies can. Although the greater a machine’s capacity for mining, the better the chance it’ll earn something of value for a miner. What Is Litecoin Worth?

Any currency—even the U.S. Dollar, even gold bullion—is only as valuable as society thinks it is. Were the to start circulating too many banknotes, the value of the dollar would plummet in short order. This phenomenon transcends currency.

Any good or service becomes less valuable the more readily and cheaply available it is. The creators of litecoin understood from the start that it would be difficult for a new currency to develop a reputation in the marketplace. But by restricting the number of litecoins in circulation, the founders could at least allay people’s fears of overproduction. There are advantages inherent to litecoin over bitcoin.

Litecoin can handle more transactions, given the shorter block generation time. Litecoin also has a barely perceptible transaction fee. It costs 1/1000 of a litecoin to process a transaction, regardless of its size. Contrast that with PayPal’s 3 percent fee. If we consider the U.S.

Dollar to be of constant value—of course it isn’t, but we need to have one static quantity when comparing cryptocurrencies—litecoin’s variability becomes clear. Through most of 2013, litecoin’s market capitalization was similar to today’s. But during a 3-week span in November 2013, its market cap increased 20-fold. It’s been gradually declining to its previous level ever since, even as the user base has increased. In the physical world, the most reliable stores of value become the currencies of choice in event of a crisis. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Zimbabwe became synonymous with hyperinflation. When inflation reached 89.7 sextillion percent (give or take a few points) and rendered the Zimbabwean dollar worthless, that wiped out the fortunes of many people unfortunate enough to have held liquid assets.

People had no choice but to use something more stable—primarily the U.S. Dollar and South African rand—for daily commerce. Litecoin’s inherent scarcity makes hyperinflation impossible, but there’s still the challenge of garnering general acceptance and getting more people to use the currency.

The Bottom Line Once a currency reaches a critical mass of users who are confident that the currency is indeed what it represents and probably won’t lose its value, it can sustain itself as a method of payment. Litecoin isn’t anywhere near universally accepted, as even its own founders admit that it has fewer than 100,000 users. (Even bitcoin probably has less than half a million total users.) But as cryptocurrencies become more readily accepted and their values stabilize, one or two of them—possibly including litecoin—will emerge as the coin(s) of the digital realm.

Last updated July 13, 2017 Litecoin is a cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin. It can be sent globally around the world almost instantly, for very low fees. History of Litecoin was actually one of the first forks of Bitcoin. Its creator, Charlie Lee, was a former Google employee and created Litecoin when he got into cryptocurrency. Why does Litecoin have value? Litecoin has value for many of the reasons Bitcoin has value.

The main reason Bitcoin has value is because it’s very useful and scarce. Litecoin is the same. Only 84 million LTC will ever exist, which creates the scarcity. Litecoin is also very useful because it can be sent anywhere in the world instantly for very low fees. Litecoin Mining Litecoin than it used to be. At the time of writing, Litecoin is about $32.

In its early days, Litecoin was very easy to mine because it was cheap and there was no competition. How to Buy Litecoin Litecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, so it’s actually gotten pretty easy to buy compared to many of the other small altcoins. Is the easiest way to buy bitcoins in the USA, Europe, UK, Australia, and Canada. You can buy with either a credit card or bank account.

If you live in South America, Africa or Asia then the easiest way is to buy bitcoins then convert using Changelly. Litecoin Wallets The number of Litecoin wallets are actually somewhat limited. Bitcoin is still the only cryptocurrency that people really use on a daily basis. So, the demand is not strong for many Litecoin wallets so not many exist. Probably the best, most feature packed Litecoin wallet is. It is a fork of the popular Bitcoin wallet Electrum.

It is open-source software and can be used on Mac, PC, or Desktop. If you want secure storage of your LTC, we recommend using a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S or the TREZOR. Those devices both support litecoins and store the coins offline, and away from hackers or malware. Both devices are also compatible with Electrum LTC, so you can use that Electrum LTC wallet to communicate with your hardware wallet. Hardware wallets will probably be the best option for you if you serious about long term, secure storage of your litecoins. Litecoin vs Bitcoin The only benefit Litecoin really has over Bitcoin is that it has more features.

Bitcoin miners were blocking a very beneficial upgrade for the system purely to benefit financially. The Litecoin miners also tried to block this update but eventually caved. The, and it basically doubles the capacity of any network it is activated on. Right now, Litecoin has Segwit activated and Bitcoin does not. Litecoin already had 4x the transaction capacity of Bitcoin, and with Segwit activated it now has 8x more capacity than Bitcoin and potentially more. Of course, not many people use Litecoin at all so this is theoretical.

Bitcoin is the only crypto that today has any real usage. Litecoin is also since blocks are created on average every 2.5 minutes, whereas for Bitcoin the blocks are every 10 minutes. This simply means that you get a lower amount of security faster with Litecoin. Litecoin vs Bitcoin. These two cryptocurrencies are often compared, and for good reason. Exchanges Bitcoin is by far the easiest cryptocurrency to buy. Every crypto exchange supports Bitcoin.

Most support Litecoin, but not all., the world’s largest Bitcoin broker, recently added Litecoin which made it very easy for Americans, Europeans, Australians, and Canadians to with a credit card or bank account. The main problem for LTC, however, is that it is very hard to buy Litecoin with cash. LocalBitcoins, BitQuick, and Wall of Coins are the biggest cash to Bitcoin exchanges and none support Litecoin. Winner: Bitcoin Price The Bitcoin price is obviously higher than Litecoin, and so is its market cap.

It may has more room for growth, but that is unlikely to happen unless Litecoin is able to take use-cases from BTC. Winner: Bitcoin Speed The average Bitcoin confirmation takes 10 minutes, while Litecoin confirmations take on average 2.5 minutes. While this makes Litecoin seem faster, you’d still need 4 Litecoin confirmations to reach the same level of security as Bitcoin. With Litecoin’s activation of Segwit, it while Bitcoin does not. This means Litecoin supports instant transactions, and Bitcoin doesn’t.

It’s a close call, but Bitcoin is likely to get these features eventually. Winner: Tie Security Bitcoin’s is far bigger than Litecoin. Bitcoin mining also seems to be more decentralized than Litecoin. This is not really a close competition. Litecoin’s hash rate will grow if its price rises, but for now Bitcoin simply has a much more serious mining industry behind it. Winner: Bitcoin Acceptance BitPay, the leader in helping merchants accept Bitcoin, does not have Litecoin support.

This could change if BitPay added support for Litecoin, but for now Bitcoin is the clear winner here. Winner: Bitcoin Developers Litecoin has a solid, but not nearly as many as Bitcoin. Also, much of Litecoin’s code is simply just ported over from Bitcoin. Litecoin has good code, but most crypto developers focus on Bitcoin. Winner: Bitcoin Wallets This is where it really shows that not many people are using Litecoin.

There are very compared to how many are available for Bitcoin. Luckily for Litecoin, most hardware wallets like TREZOR and Ledger support LTC. However, there are not as many iOS and Android wallets available for Litecoin. Winner: Bitcoin Liquidity Bitcoin is available on more markets and is considered the reserve currency of crypto. It is the most stable crypto. Litecoin is probably the second most stable cryptocurrency, but it still does not even come close to matching. The Bitcoin markets are also very deep compared to Litecoin, and larger trades can be made that don’t move the market as much as they would move the BTC market.

OTC markets also exist for BTC, so large buys and sells. While these markets may exist for LTC, they are not as popular. Also, purely by market cap, Bitcoin is much bigger which means it can handle a much larger amount of trade than Litecoin. Winner: Bitcoin Privacy Both Bitcoin and Litecoin have the same privacy features, which aren’t anything special. Running a full node with either coin will be the most private user. Transactions on these coins are public, so anyone can see outputs and inputs.