There are a few main differences between the purpose of Litecoin and Ethereum and how they function. For starters, Litecoin is meant to be a transactional currency or store of value, similar to Bitcoin. However, Ethereum functions as a decentralized « global computer, » with smart contracts functionality and the ability to run decentralized applications (DApps).
Established Community
Although cryptocurrencies have a reputation for being used on the darknet for drug transactions and facilitating ransomware attacks, a growing number of legitimate, legal outlets accept Litecoin as legal tender. Whether you’re looking for jewelry, clothing, or even luxury cars, there are many places you can spend Litecoin. These two main differences from bitcoin make Litecoin very much its own cryptocurrency and more than just a pretender to the throne. Over the years it has garnered a base of thousands of owners all over the world, who between them trade millions of dollars worth of Litecoin every day. The cryptocurrency was created by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, who intended Litecoin to be a « lite version of Bitcoin, » in that it features many of the same properties as Bitcoin—albeit lighter in weight. Both cryptocurrencies run on a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, however Ethereum is scheduled to « merge » to Ethereum 2.0 and fully transition to a proof-of-stake blockchain in 2022.
- After working at Google and founding Litecoin, he also worked on the engineering side at Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
- Trading in contracts for difference (CFDs) is riskier than conventional share trading, not suitable for the majority of investors, and includes the potential for partial or total loss of capital.
- Another scaling solution, the Lightning Network, was also implemented on Litecoin before Bitcoin.
- Charlie has stated that he plans on continuing development on Litecoin well into the future and will never retire from the crypto space.
- The vast majority of people who jump into the cryptocurrency world will buy Bitcoin first.
Latest Litecoin News
The goal in launching Litecoin was to improve on Bitcoin in a few different ways. For one, Lee developed a new hashing algorithm What is Litecoin for Litecoin called Scrypt (pronounced S-crypt). Generating new blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain can take about 10 minutes.
Litecoin and MimbleWimble
Solving hashes requires immense computing power, which requires significant energy and space. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive payment from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Advisor site. To set up an account on one of these exchanges, you’ll need to go through the « Know Your Customer (or client) » registration process. This generally includes providing identification, taxpayer ID numbers, addresses, or other information that the exchange is required by law to collect. In 2024, the best way to mine Litecoin is by purchasing one or more ASIC miners compatible with Scrypt.
It’s meant to make cryptocurrency accessible and usable for everyone and is perfectly fine with taking a back-seat role to Bitcoin. For every individual Bitcoin block that gets confirmed, four Litecoin blocks of equal size get confirmed. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks. Around 500,000 LTC was instamined on day one after the LTC genesis block was mined and Charlie Lee and presumably other early Litecoin developers were among the first miners. Like most proof-of-work (POW) cryptocurrencies, the amount of Litecoin in circulation gradually increases with each newly mined block. As of January 2021, Litecoin is one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, and more than 2,000 merchants and stores now accept LTC across the globe.
Seeing how regulators choked out online poker sites by barring payment providers from working with them is what made him “realize the importance of the freedom of money”. Despite regulatory uncertainties, according to CoinMarketCap, “Litecoin is one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, with more than 2,000 merchants and stores now accepting LTC across the globe”. Litecoin mining operations aren’t something you’ll typically see running on a computer out of someone’s living room. Solving hashes requires immense computing power, which requires significant energy and space. Litecoin is an open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. This gives you the power to run, modify and copy the software, and to distribute your own modified copies of the software.
Placing a higher emphasis on utilizing high-speed RAM, Litecoin makes it much less possible for a single player (or small collective group of big players) to dominate the mining world. One of Litecoin’s goals is to distribute hash power more evenly than Bitcoin’s network. This includes mining pools, mining groups, and a much smaller (and less decentralized) subset of miners. Transaction confirmation speeds play a huge role in how quickly a currency gets adopted. Bitcoin confirmations usually take around ten minutes with periods as high as 2,548 minutes.
- The bearish turnaround has tumbled the asset from $112.8 to $63— a 45% decrease, while the market cap plunges to $4.77 Billion.
- These include EOS at 4,000 TPS, XRP at 1,500 TPS and Cardano at 257 TPS, to name just a few.
- This transition is typically healthy for an asset to drive a stable recovery trend.
- Litecoin is one of the few cryptocurrencies with a wide variety of fiat trading pairs, and can be exchanged for U.S. dollars (USD), Korean won (KRW), euros (EUR) and more.
- The information available, whilst important, such as the next halving date, isn’t massively helpful to anyone new to cryptocurrencies and wants to learn more about the project.
- The improved transaction speed was meant to prove to merchants that they no longer had to be frustrated by Bitcoin’s long settlement time.
- The broader differences between the two cryptocurrencies are listed in the table below.
Cryptocurrency is unregulated in Australia and your capital is at risk. Trading in contracts for difference (CFDs) is riskier than conventional share trading, not suitable for the majority of investors, and includes the potential for partial or total loss of capital. You should always consider whether you can afford to lose your money before deciding to trade in CFDs or cryptocurrency, and seek advice from an authorised financial advisor.