Introduction

Do you know what is a cryptocurrency? You might have seen or heard about the cryptocurrency in the advertisements, social media, online brochure or through word of mouth. To know what a litecoin cryptocurrency is, first you must know what a cryptocurrency is.

So, what is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a digital asset which is designed as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrency uses strong cryptography to secure these transactions. It is decentralized as they are opposed by centralized banks. The cryptocurrency works through a distributed ledger technology which is known as blockchain.

The first decentralized cryptocurrency is the Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open source software released in the year 2009. After the release of bitcoin about 4,000 altcoins (alternate variants of bitcoins) have been created.

Now you’ve got an idea about cryptocurrency, right.

What is Litecoin cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency really got a warm welcome and was accepted by everyone. So, now people are looking for something to invest in something which is above the bitcoin. Litecoin cryptocurrency is another popular choice.

Litecoin is an early altcoin is nearly identical to bitcoin. Litecoin is peer to peer cryptocurrency and open source software created by Charlie Lee released under the license MIT/X11. Unlike the bitcoins, litecoins are not managed by any central authority.

Litecoin was first released through an opensource on GitHub on October 7, 2011, and went exclusive on 13 October 2017. Users can use it to transfer money to one another. Instead of dollars, transactions will be done as litecoins.

How are these litecoins made?

Litecoins are created by a procedure called Mining, which processes the list of litecoin transactions. The supply of litecoins is very fixed. There should only be a limited number of litecoins in circulation. For every 2 minutes, a litecoin produces a block. A block is a ledger appearance of litecoin transactions.

The block made is visible to a miner person and is verified by a mining software. The verified block enters into the chain which is a list of litecoins transactions.

What is Mining?

Mining is proof of work mechanism which is very easy to understand by miners. The very first miner who verifies the block will be awarded 50 cents. But the litecoins rewarded for the task may reduce with time.

Do you think a miner can process the same litecoin twice?

Of course not, It would be a scam and can be immediately detected by the other miner.

Mining of cryptocurrencies at a given time requires very high processing power. Litecoins can be mined with ordinary computers. But, the greater the capacity of a machine for mining the better it will earn something for a miner. While pooling the litecoin, you can only choose one litecoin for mining. If you try to pool and monetize, the memory becomes a way too much. So to deal with these issues Litecoin uses the scrypt algorithm. Scrypt is a hard memory problem. The more the number of litecoins in a pool the more memory it requires. Scrypt is designed to make mining even more accessible.

Transition speed of litecoin

The average mining speed of a litecoin block is 2.5 mins. But sometimes due to the network congestion and slow mining, it may take up to 29 mins.

Using litecoin you can get two confirmations at a time within 5 mins where the bitcoin will take about 29min.

Worth of Litecoin

Anything that is new into the market takes time to earn a reputation. In the same way, the litecoin creators already knew that it would take time to gain a reputation in the market. The value of one litecoin is $ 42.84 USD and so the number of litecoins are restricted.

Advantages of Litecoin over bitcoin,

• Litecoin can accept more transactions but only the shorter block takes time to generate.
• Litecoin will ask for a very less transaction fee, It costs about 1/1000 of a litecoin to process a transaction.

Where can you buy or locate litecoins

The value of litecoins has been increasing lately. The reason for its increasing value is that the latecoins are available as they recently bought up the coin-based exchange.

You can buy litecoins from the exchange centers like

• BTC- e
• Kraken
• Cryptsy

And to locate the litecoins, you can check Hardware wallet, Desktop wallet, Mobile wallet, and Paper Wallet.

Conclusion

Litecoins are booming as they are now inherited as coins which is one of the easiest ways to exchange. Everything has its own importance sometimes less and sometimes more. And so the importance of litecoins is increasing than bitcoins.

Litecoins are the first to implement segwit (an implemented soft fork which enables the change in the transaction format of a cryptocurrency)and atomic swaps (allows the exchange of cryptocurrency without any centralized intermediates) and many more to go. The value of litecoins is assuredly well earning.