Considering the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies in the market, Litecoin has a tight hold. Moreover, Litecoin also known as LTC is popularly considered to be one of the primary alternative cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin. After the launch of Bitcoin, the big buss and forefather of the cryptocurrency world in 2009, Litecoin was launched on October 13, 2011, with a crisp and clear purpose of bringing “the silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” in the digital currency market. Although both Bitcoin and Litecoin are popular, the algorithms that both use are quite different: Bitcoin uses the SHA 256 and Litecoin uses the Scrypt technique. For more information you can read here: fait currency
Litecoin draws in a wide range of similarities with Bitcoin or BTC in the respect that it is also operated byan open-source blockchain. Both are forms of cryptocurrencies thatare completely decentralized. There are Litecoin node operators who monitor every transaction through a copy of each blockchain.
Speed Oriented Development of Litecoin
Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee who was a Google engineer. After Bitcoin whichever cryptocurrency came into the market was named altcoins, Litecoinwas attributed to being one of the first “altcoins”.
The purpose of designing and launching was to fill up the loopholes or laggings of Bitcoin. One of the primary aims was to push the transaction speed and make it a faster alternative to Bitcoin. To do so, Lee designed Litecoin with a simpler algorithm for Litecoin, particularly a new technology hashing algorithm termed Scrypt (pronounced S-crypt). This algorithm worked for Litecoin and enabled it to support faster transaction speeds. It is true that the scrypt usage has made Litecoin more accessible to people, because SHA-256 is comparatively a more complicated algorithm when it is to be used for crypto mining.
Bitcoin Speed and Need for an Alternative
After the launch of Bitcoin, while on one hand there was a great hike in its popularity for being the first of its kind, on the other hand, experts were counting on the drawbacks, and speed was a primary one. Bitcoin offered a comparatively slow transaction speed as per the requirement, which was approximately five transactions per second.
Litecoin’s transaction processing speed, on the other hand, is 54 per second—and new blocks on the Litecoin blockchain can be created about every 2.5 minutes. Litecoin works on peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto payment networkconfirmations to generate new blocks, however, even then it has a transaction speed of 54 per second and a new block creation speed of 2.5 blocks per second.
Litecoin vs Bitcoin
Litecoin and Bitcoin have multiple differences in respect to speed, operation, algorithm, etc. Even though Litecoin was first launched in the market as an alternative to Bitcoin and it has a considerably huge market capitalization, today Bitcoin predominates in the cryptocurrency market with the highest value.
Coin Count
Well, even though Bitcoin and Litecoin both have a definite number of coins in circulation in the market. However, they differ in respect of the number of coins in circulation for example, Bitcoin has 21 million coins whereasLitecoin has a considerably greater amount of 84 million coins.
Transaction Speed
Lee made sure that he designs Litecoin with superior technology to enable faster mining as well as transactions. When it comes to mining new blocks of Litecoin it is almost four times faster compared to Bitcoin. Litecoin transactions involve less complications, they can easily be stored, retrieved and traded in, and you can also get an update about the nature of transaction per second, the average timing between blocks etc.
Market Cap
Bitcoin is undoubtedly the big daddy of digital currencies with the largest market and value over any other altcoins.
Algorithms
Since Litecoins are built with hash algorithms, a superior technology, miners need to successfully solve hash functions when they seek to add new blocks to the blockchain. Mining takes lesser time for Litecoin compared to Bitcoin which takes an hour or more. Bitcoin works with SHA-256 the hash function whileLitecoin is integrated with Scrypt hash function – comparatively an advanced technology.
Well, since Bitcoin value is the highest in the digital currency market many beginners and new investors look for alternative reliable altcoins to invest in Litecoin could be a great pick, you can also use trading tools from and make your crypto investments easier and convenient.
