What Is LiteCoin:
Litecoin (LTC) is a cryptocurrency created from a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain in 2011. It was initially designed to address the developer's concerns that Bitcoin was becoming too centrally controlled and to make it more difficult for large-scale mining firms to gain the upper hand in mining. While eventually unsuccessful in preventing enterprise miners from taking over the lion's share of Litecoin mining, the cryptocurrency has reworked itself into a minable coin and a peer-to-peer payment system. Learn more about Litecoin and what makes it different.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency founded in 2011, two years after Bitcoin, by a former Google engineer named Charlie Lee. It shares similar features with Bitcoin but has a different algorithm. The cryptocurrency's goal is to become a medium for daily transactions. Litecoin has a faster transaction processing time than Bitcoin. Although it is a Bitcoin fork, the two have several differences.
How Is Litecoin Different From Bitcoin:
Litecoin:
Total coin cap of 84 million Uses Scrypt hashing algorithm Capacity for up to 50 transactions per second Block time of 2.5 minutes Reward halves every 840,000 blocks
Bitcoin:
Total coin cap of 21 million Uses SHA-256 hashing algorithm Capacity for up to seven transactions per second Block time of 10 minutes Reward halves every 240,000 blocks
The Future of Litecoin:
Binance spends some of its revenues each quarter to purchase back and burn Binance Coins, totally eliminating them. Binance has continuously performed quarterly burns since 2017. Binance will continue burning BNB coins every quarter until it has purchased and destroyed 100 million Binance coins, or half of its original maximum supply. The process decreases Binance Coin's supply and affects its rarity, which can potentially affect the asset’s value. Binance also has something called the BNB Pioneer Burn Program, which evaluates certain instances in which BNB holders unrecoverably lost BNB, and repays them, deducting the amount from the next BNB burn.
How To Mine Litecoin:
ASIC mining machines in which mining software is pre-installed can be used to mine Litecoin. On the contrary, if you're mining using a central processing unit (CPU) or graphical processing unit (GPU), you'll have to pick your own program while keeping security in mind. Malware could be included in a software product. You should also be on the lookout for other shady, if not malevolent, activities. After you've settled on your mining equipment, you'll need to pick whether you'll mine solo or in a pool. You run the risk of going a long time without discovering a block if you mine alone. However, if you locate a block mining solo, you keep the entire 25 Litecoin plus fees. Please note that it is only possible if you have a significant amount of hash power (multiple ASICs). In addition, you have virtually no chance of ever earning any LTC if you mine alone using a GPU or CPU. Pool mining is better than solo mining; however, rewards are distributed to the pool participants based on the hash power they contributed.
Lightning Network:
The Lightning Network is a scaling solution that essentially creates an extra layer on top of a cryptocurrency’s blockchain, in which transactions are fast and fees are minuscule. That extra layer consists of user-generated payment channels. It was originally designed to be implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain. Like SegWit, the network was first implemented on Litecoin, which many used to test Lightning Network in a real economic environment. The layer-2 scaling solution is controversial. According to critics, it pushes users to non-custodial wallets on which users would have to run their node. Litecoin’s Lightning Network adoption has been somewhat slow while Bitcoin’s Lightning Network adoption grew exponentially in its initial months. The reason for the slowdown on LTC may be the base layer’s already low transaction fees. The first-ever off-chain atomic swap between the Bitcoin and Litecoin Lightning Networks was completed in 2017. Charlie Lee suggested that Litecoin could onboard users onto the Lightning Network when the Bitcoin blockchain is congested and fees are high.