An absolutely always popular thing became the reason for the appearance of its analogues. And very often the analogs are better than the original. This trend has befallen the cryptocurrency industry as well. The sharp and rapid growth of Bitcoin has led to the creation of alternative cryptocurrencies. It is worth noting that Bitcoin itself is based on blockchain development. The new currencies are created on the source code of Bitcoin, so they are considered forks of it. Now there are more than 1,500 types of cryptocurrencies, but some of them are highly popular (Ethereum, Litecoin), while others have not yet found it.
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Features of the Litecoin cryptocurrency
The Litecoin cryptocurrency (LTC) was developed by Charles Lee in 2011. In his project, the developer tried not only to preserve all the advantages of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, but also to strengthen them, to eliminate the existing errors. Already 2 years after its inception, Litecoin was rightfully considered the main reserve digital currency after Bitcoin. And in 2016, it became the second most expensive and significant cryptocurrency, overtaking many existing altcoins.
Litecoin is one of the forks of Bitcoin and has a free open-source algorithm that is developed under the MIT / X11 license. Still, Litecoin is significantly different from Bitcoin.
Differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin
Although Litecoin is similar in characteristics to Bitcoin (transparency, complete anonymity, availability and decentralization), it is still an independent currency of the crypto world. Litecoin has the following properties and differences:
All crypto transactions are carried out using special email addresses. If a Bitcoin address always starts with the digits 1,3 and consists of 27-34 characters, then the Litecoin address starts with the letter L and contains 33 characters.
Both cryptocurrencies have a limited release, that is, the volume of coins in circulation is initially known. For Bitcoin, the emission limit is 21 million coins, but for Litecoin – 84 million. Experts predict that 3/4 of all LTC coins will be mined by 2020.
In mining, Litecoin uses the scrypt hash function as proof of work, and SHA-256 is used for Bitcoin mining.
Litecoin is mined 4 times faster than Bitcoin. It takes about 2.5 minutes to generate a block of 25 LTC, while a BTC block takes 10 minutes. That is, for the same time, you can process many times more information and get more accurate and relevant data on profitability.
One of the most important advantages of Litecoin over Bitcoin is considered to be a high degree of protection against hacking. Since new blocks in Litecoin are generated 4 times faster than in Bitcoin, cyber fraudsters have, accordingly, 4 times less time to carry out a hacker attack. Therefore, the high speed of information processing within the Litecoin network plays against fraudsters. The popularity of cryptocurrency also plays an important role. LTC today costs 90 times less than BTC, so the main blow of cyber-attacks falls on Bitcoin.
Conclusion
Prospects always affect the choice of a particular coin, and here Litecoin definitely wins over Bitcoin. While powerful and expensive BTC attracts attention mainly as a storage medium, LTC, due to its speed and low cost, can be used as a universal payment solution. Many people who want to buy litecoin with paypal, tend to use a decentralized or P2P Exchange. And the further, the more the speed of operations will play a more important role. This suggests that Litecoin is developing in the right direction.
