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What Is Litecoin, and What Are Its Advantages

Until a decade ago, when almost every product and service started to get digitized, no one would have predicted that a digital currency with completely decentralized trading would take the world by storm. Cryptocurrencies have captured every investor’s interest, and rightfully so. With the advent of Bitcoin, the fluctuations and growing interest in the market have only multiplied. Ever since Bitcoin came into existence in 2009, plenty of cryptocurrencies have entered the market and tried to leverage the tremendous market potential they possess. However, very few have been able to stand the competition, and the only tough competitor to Bitcoin is Litecoin.

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by open-source software released under the MIT/X11 license. It is often referred to as the lite version of Bitcoin owing to its cost and speed. After Litecoin was released, it had its first price surge in November 2013 and rapidly became one of the hottest cryptocurrencies in the market. Litecoin ranks as the sixth most profitable cryptocurrency in the market among thousands of others. Litecoin has survived well, and therefore let us look at what makes this cryptocurrency so good.

What is Litecoin?

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency with a much faster processing algorithm and enables instant near-zero payments anywhere across the world. It uses similar mathematical code as Bitcoin but with a much quicker, almost 4x processing speed.

Charlie Lee, a former employee of Google and engineering director of Coinbase, created Litecoin in 2011 to complement Bitcoin. Using the same code, he intended to create a bar of silver to the Bitcoin’s ‘gold’ like a little brother to the Bitcoin. To elaborate, Litecoin can create blocks in 2.5 minutes compared to Bitcoin’s 10. The transaction time using Litecoin is much faster.

If you’re interested to learn more about Litecoin, there are some awesome how-to videos on Youtube. The best ones have custom graphics that have used random shape generators to help you understand Litecoin concepts better.

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Litecoin – Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Litecoin has very high scalability and fast processing times. It has a novel mining algorithm and low transaction fees.
  • Litecoin is open-source; therefore, its protocol can be easily changed, adapting to the cryptocurrency market and its needs.
  • Litecoin has a scalable structure and can process 56 transactions simultaneously than seven by Bitcoin and 11 by Ethereum.

Cons

  • Litecoin is pictured and placed a lot like Bitcoin, which somehow takes away its uniqueness of speed and other features.
  • Litecoin is used by 30% of underground vendors, which affects Litecoin’s image.

Conclusion 

Litecoin is one of the most advanced and competitive cryptocurrencies in the market. It is one of the most potential coins in the market, proving extraordinarily beneficial and scalable in the real world. It is currently priced at 100.10 EUR and can be bought from the Litecoin price page and sold using the Kriptomat exchange wallet interface.

Litecoin reported its highest value in December 2017, for $375, with some dip around 2018 before surging again in early 2019. With the correct changes to the protocol using its open-source software, Litecoin has proven to be a competitive cryptocurrency that has taken the market in its stride.