What is Litecoin? Bitcoin vs. LitecoinsteemCreated with Sketch.

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

"The Cryptocurrency For Payments"

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Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables quick, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world.

Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances.

Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency.

With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.

If you are new to cryptocurrencies, you might ask "what is the difference between Bitcoin and Litecoin?".

Here is a quick overview of some of the major differences between the two cryptocurrencies:

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The main difference is that litecoin can confirm transactions must faster than bitcoin. The implications of that are as follows:

Litecoin can handle a higher volume of transactions thanks to its faster block generation. If bitcoin were to try to match this, it would require significant updates to the code that everyone on the bitcoin network is currently running.

The disadvantage of this higher volume of blocks is that the litecoin blockchain will be proportionately larger than bitcoin's, with more orphaned blocks.

The faster block time of litecoin reduces the risk of double spending attacks – this is theoretical in the case of both networks having the same hashing power.

A merchant who waited for a minimum of two confirmations would only need to wait five minutes, whereas they would have to wait 10 minutes for just one confirmation with bitcoin.

In other words, litecoin is a close sibling to bitcoin because I believe that bitcoin is a store of value and when cryptocurrency is mass adopted, litecoin will be used to make small transactions such as buying a pizza.

I hope this brief summary of litecoin helped you understand a little more about it! Both bitcoin and litecoin have been seeing massive gains in the past few days and it might be a good idea to look into investing! That's just my opinion though!

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I am extremely new to the world of cryptocurrency, maybe not as new as the rush that has happened over the past two weeks but still new none the less. So as someone who has more knowledge than I do, is mining any of these currencies even worth it anymore? Should we just treat them as commodities and let the large mining companies do the heavy lifting?
Thank you for the cool information.

Smaller cryptos maybe.. but with the difficulty adjustments and hash power required, you will probably do just as well with the Bitcoin Collider... lol BTC mining is a billion dollar business with companies having invested 10's of millions in equipment... look for small new coins to mine... then dump them... :)

this is also a very good idea, it is also good to find cryptos that you believe in and believe that will do well in the future and support them by mining!

Unfortunately, the difficulty of mining has risen so much for bitcoin and litecoin that a normal computer or gpu cannot be profitable while mining like it once was in the past. This is due to bitcoin and litecoin not being asic resistant meaning that both of these cryptos have large companies producing expensive machines that mine much more efficiently than a normal graphics card would, thus increasing the difficulty of mining and leaving regular computers in the dust. You can buy a bitcoin or litecoin asic miner but the investment can be costly and unless you are set on mining, I think a better option would just be to invest that money into bitcoin or litecoin instead of going through the extra troubles that mining comes with.

Here is a great bitcoin and litecoin mining calculator that will tell you the profitability of the miners before you buy them: https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=28&HashingUnit=TH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=2600&CostPerkWh=.09

Thanks for your comment! Hope this helps!