THE CREATOR OF LITECOIN AND HIS PURPOSE FOR CREATING LITECOIN

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What is litecoin?

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Litecoin(LTC) is a P2P(peer-to-peer) digital currency that allows anyone in the world to pay almost instantly at almost no cost. It is one of the cryptocurrencies in the market and as of April 2021, it is the 10th largest cryptocurrency according to marketcap. Litecoin is also an open-source, fully decentralized, global payment network. It is nicknamed "The silver to Bitcoin's Gold".


Litecoin is almost the same as bitcoin because it is developed with the same blockchain technology. Mr. Charlie Lee, the litecoin creator, cloned the bitcoin source code and made some enhancements to it as he thinks what is best for it. The hashing protocol, average block transaction time, GUI, and total maximum supply limit value are among the changes he did.


As I stated here in this article, Mr. lee wanted to create a lighter, cheaper, and faster version of bitcoin so they needed to create a new proof-of-work algorithm, and they did create one that is less computing power and was less expensive to run than Bitcoin's SHA-256 algorithm, which is called scrypt.

What is the difference between Litecoin to bitcoin?

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• Litecoin can generate block transactions in just 2.5 minutes while bitcoin's 10 minutes that means litecoin surpasses bitcoin's transaction speed by 400%.

• Litecoin's maximum supply has been increased to 84 million LTC, which is four times the value of Bitcoin's supply cap of 21 million BTC.

• They use different cryptographic algorithms. Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm, but Litecoin uses a relatively new Scrypt algorithm.

Pros and Cons of Litecoin

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Pros

• It has a lower transaction cost, When you send Bitcoin from one wallet to another, a small amount of cryptocurrency is lost as the transaction is checked on the blockchain. Though Litecoin works similarly to Bitcoin, its network is more robust, which means you lose less money when you send or receive a transaction.

• Less vulnerable to hackers and transaction speed is faster. Litecoin's transaction takes 2.5 minutes to complete while Bitcoin's 10 minutes which means hackers have only a small window to attempt double-spend. Its flexibility also enables developers to regularly implement software security patches, so they can maintain the changing attack methods of hackers.

• Litecoin has a maximum limit of 84 million coins that is 4 times than bitcoin which means investors don't have to worry about the risk of inflation litecoin might have.

• Litecoin's stability over the years shows great improvement since it launched. We cannot deny that for almost 10 years that litecoin has been one of the cryptocurrencies in the market it is always in the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies according to market cap.

Cons

• Loses its credibility, why? It is because when Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin sold all of his litecoin tokens in 2017 that made the investors questioned its potential in the future.

• Litecoin is now commonly used in dark web transaction, 30% of all vendors uses litecoin as an alternate method of payment.

Is Litecoin a good investment?

Litecoin has proven its stability over its 10 years existence and for me, it is a good investment for long-term investors, if you are willing to take risks your investment in Litecoin could pay off in the future if it breaks through and takes over with other competitors. Still, you should do your own research about Litecoin and just always remember the 1 percent risk rule that means to never risk more than what you can earn in a single trade.

I still have a lot to learn about cryptocurrency, thanks to professor @yohan2on for sharing this amazing lesson about altcoin.