Coin Highlight: Litecoin (LTC)

History:

Since its creation in 2011, Litecoin (LTC) has consistently shown to be one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. Founded by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, LTC shows how digital assets can be used for everyday payments. Commonly referred to as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold”, Lee’s intention was for Litecoin to become a more efficient version of Bitcoin. Emerging from a hard fork of Bitcoin, Lee’s intention was to counter flaws that were seen in BTC, such as transaction speed, scalability and ability to mine.

Purpose:

Litecoin's main function is to operate as a decentralised global payment system. This means that people are able to send and receive funds locally or internationally, without needing to use a third party (such as a bank or payment provider). Much like Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, LTC is a form of digital money. However, its block confirmation time allows for near instant transactions and substantially low transaction costs, making it well suited for smaller, daily transactions.

Features:

Currently Bitcoin takes 10 minutes to be confirmed on the blockchain, whereas Litecoin requires approximately 2.5 minutes, meaning that it is close to 4x faster to transacte than BTC. Moreover, BTC is able to process 7 transactions per second, and Ethereum 15 per second. While LTC is able to process 56 transactions per second, allowing for lower congestion on the network.

Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin uses the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm to verify its network. Meaning that new tokens are created by “mining”. Mining being the “work” itself, it is the process of adding valid blocks to the blockchain. (Please see our article/video on Blockchain for more information).

Scarcity is assured as there will only ever be a maximum supply of 84 million Litecoin, which is believed to be mined by the year 2142.

Under the hood:

As opposed to Bitcoin which operates with the SHA-256 algorithm, Litecoin employs a relatively new algorithm known as Scrypt. Being an incredibly complex algorithm, SHA-256 has required Bitcoin miners to gain computational hardware that increasingly requires more and more power. Consequently, this has made mining BTC impractical for the everyday user. While Scrypt, which was designed to require less computational power, has allowed Litecoin mining to continue to be accessible by CPUs or GPUs, as opposed to specialised hardware, such as ASIC miners, typically required for mining BTC.

Applications:

Currently Litecoin is a viable option for near instantaneous payments, and posing as an alternative to traditional bank services, especially when sending funds internationally. Payment provider giant Paypal has even announced that their users in the United States are able to buy, sell, hold, and checkout with Cryptocurrencies (Litecoin being 1 of 4) directly through their PayPal account. PayPal plans to expand this to certain global markets through 2021. As Litecoin continues to become more readily accepted, many believe it will emerge as one of the standard currencies of the digital realm.

How to Buy Litecoin:

If you're wondering how to buy LTC? The easiest way to buy Litecoin in Australia is through CoinSpot; Australia's largest cryptocurrency platform. Once you have created a free account you will have access to your very own Litecoin Wallet plus over 510 other cryptocurrencies and their corresponding wallets. Using CoinSpot you can instantly purchase Litecoin and it will reflect into your wallet instantaneously. There are multiple ways you can purchase Litecoin other than our Instant buy/sell; these options are the CoinSpot Markets, Over the Counter (OTC), Recurring Buy & Swap which allows you to directly trade Litecoin with other cryptocurrencies.

For step by step instructions on how to buy Litecoin and other currencies on CoinSpot, you can visit our Help Center here or contact our friendly support team!