What is Litecoin and Why Was It Created?
Litecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment systеm with its own cryptocurrency, developed as an improved version of Bitcoin. The project’s founder, Charlie Lee, launched the network in October 2011, aiming to make transactions faster and lower the entry barrier for miners by using a different hashing algorithm—Scrypt. Litecoin is often referred to as “digital silver” in comparison to Bitcoin as “digital gold.”
The project is distributed under the MIT/X11 license, allowing free copying and modification of the code, which contributed to the rapid development of the ecosystem. Although Lee did not expect significant success, Litecoin became one of the oldest and most recognizable altcoins. According to him, Bitcoin will be used as a store of value, while Litecoin will be used for daily payments due to its low fees and high speed.
Key Differences from Bitcoin
Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin but with several significant differences:
- Transaction speed: 4 times faster—one block is formed every 2.5 minutes (Bitcoin—10 minutes).
- Mining algorithm: Scrypt instead of SHA-256, making mining less resource-intensive compared to Bitcoin.
- Maximum supply: 84 million LTC versus 21 million BTC.
- Address format: LTC addresses start with “L,” “3,” or “M” (after SegWit), while BTC addresses start with “1” or “3.”
These features make Litecoin a convenient tool for everyday use and fast transactions.
How to Buy Litecoin
You can purchase LTC in several ways:
- Through cryptocurrency exchanges: Binance, OKX, Bybit, and other international platforms.
- Using exchange services: on platforms like RubyCash, where the purchase is made without registration and in a simplified form.
- With a credit card: on the official website Litecoin.com.
It’s important to use only verified resources to reduce the risk of encountering scammers.
Mining Difficulty and LTC Mining
Mining in the Litecoin network involves participating in the creation of new blocks with subsequent rewards. Every 2016 blocks, the systеm automatically adjusts the mining difficulty to maintain the average block time at 2.5 minutes.
Previously, LTC could be mined with a regular PC—on CPU or GPU. However, with the advent of specialized devices (ASIC miners from Bitmain) in 2014, mining became profitable only with powerful farms.
Today, without high-performance equipment, mining Litecoin has become economically unfeasible.
What is Litecoin Halving?
Halving is an event where the reward for a mined block is halved. This is necessary to regulate emission and stimulate the growth of the coin’s value due to scarcity.
Examples of halvings in the Litecoin network:
- 2015 — from 50 LTC to 25 LTC
- 2019 — from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC
- 2023 — reduction to 6.25 LTC
This event is pre-programmed into the protocol and occurs approximately every 4 years.
Who Develops Litecoin
The main development work is carried out by the non-profit organization Litecoin Foundation, founded in 2017 by Charlie Lee in Singapore. He left Coinbase to focus on Litecoin’s development. Alongside him, the board of directors includes specialists from various countries, including developers, investors, and managers.
The foundation supports the developers of the Litecoin Core client, handles marketing, and implements new technologies. In 2017, Lee even sold all his LTC to eliminate potential conflicts of interest and avoid influencing the market.
Why Was the SegWit Fork Needed?
In April 2017, the Litecoin network became the first major network to activate SegWit—an updаte that allows increasing throughput without changing the base block size. This enabled faster transactions and reduced fees.
Thanks to SegWit, the Litecoin network became ready for the implementation of Lightning Network—a technology for instant payments. Charlie Lee himself called this “field testing for Bitcoin.” Indeed, in practice, Litecoin was the first to test many updates later adopted by Bitcoin.
Conclusion
Litecoin is not just a copy of Bitcoin but an independent, technologically advanced, and flexible project, developing towards improving everyday crypto payments. It has become an important tool in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and continues to serve as a fast and accessible digital currency.
For those looking to quickly and conveniently buy or exchange LTC, an excellent solution could be RubyCash—a user-friendly service with a simple interface and favorable rates.