Litecoin Cryptocurrency: A Complete Guide for Absolute Beginners

The rush to collect cryptocurrencies continues well into 2020.

If you are new to the crypto space, you might have heard of only Bitcoin.

But there are hundreds of altcoins (or alternative cryptocurrencies) other than Bitcoin. Each altcoin comes up with its own unique technology and vision to change the world.

One such cryptocurrency goes by the name of Litecoin.

Fun fact: Litecoin prices surged more than 1000% in last 9 years.

Litecoin is the world’s first altcoin. Like Bitcoin, Litecoin also exists on the internet as digital money. No one can feel, touch, or mint it.

But there are still fundamental differences between both currencies.

What Is Litecoin Cryptocurrency Used For?

Litecoin is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, but it is based on an entirely different protocol. It was conceived to act like pure digital money.

The official Litecoin site says:

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

Litecoin is also open source, decentralized, and backed by cryptographic math to secure transactions.

Litecoin was not made to compete against Bitcoin, but instead to act as a complimentary payment solution alternative.

Think of Litecoin as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.

When And Why Was Litecoin Created? 

Litecoin was created on 7th Oct 2011 by Charlie Lee, an ex-Google employee. Litecoin was designed to complement Bitcoin by solving problems like concentrated mining pools and transaction timings. Charlie is very active on Twitter.

Litecoin came from Bitcoin’s core code with some modifications. Charlie Lee modified the code and protocol in the way he considered best in order to achieve large-scale adoption of the currency.

Lee wanted to reduce block confirmation timings of 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes so that a higher volume of transactions could be confirmed.

By doing so, Lee enhanced the Litecoin transaction speed by 4X (when compared to Bitcoin).

The original Bitcoin core’s algorithm of SHA-256 was changed to the Scrypt algorithm, which is very memory-consuming. The Scrypt algorithm makes it difficult to operate concentrated mining pools.

Team Behind Litecoin 

This one is very interesting.

In 2011, Charlie Lee released Litecoin on GitHub.

From 2011-2016, Litecoin didn’t have any full-time developers. Initially, only Charlie Lee (the creator of Litecoin) and Warren Togami (the lead developer) were associated with the Litecoin open source project.

In 2016, a developer under the alias name Shaolinfry” joined Litecoin. 

There are also several other contributors who run the community and look after releases. 

At present Warren Togami works with Blockstream and Charlie Lee announced his return to LTC after working with Coinbase for a while.

https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/873343321296429056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.bitcoin.com%2Fcharlie-lee-resigns-from-coinbase-to-focus-on-litecoin%2F

How Many Litecoins Will There Be? 

Litecoin was the first one to identify the limited supply of 21 million bitcoins. So, Litecoin came up with a 4X supply of bitcoins.

The total number of Litecoin to ever be produced is 84 million units. At present, there are approx. 53 million units in circulation and 31 million units yet to be mined.

Every 2.5 minutes, a Litecoin block is mined, and 25 coins are generated, which makes 14,400 Litecoins per day.

How Much Is One Litecoin Worth?

At the time of this article, the price of each unit of Litecoin (LTC) is worth $149 with 56,269,188 LTC in circulation.

Hence, the market capitalization of Litecoin is $ 8.4 billion, putting it in the top 5 list of cryptocurrencies by market cap.

How To Buy Litecoin (Best Websites to Buy Litecoin [LTC] )

Usually buying altcoins with fiat is difficult because of liquidity. But Litecoin is one of the oldest players amongst the altcoin has sufficient liquidity and it is possible to buy LTC for USD, EUR, CNY, GBP etc. So here is the list of sources from where you can buy LTC.

Buy Litecoin from Coinbase

A cheap and fast way of buying Litecoin is through Coinbase, provided that they serve your country.

You can check to see if their service is available in your country over here.

Here’s what you do:

  • Register an account at Coinbase.
  • Configure your bank account.
  • Transfer your national currency into your Coinbase wallet.
  • Exchange your currency for Litecoin.

Buy Litecoin from Changelly

If you are from one of those countries where Coinbase is not operational, then you can buy Bitcoins & exchange it for Litecoins.


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One of the easiest ways to get ahold of your first Litecoin (LTC) is to get it exchanged from Changelly. I like using Changelly because of their competitive exchange rates.

To do this, you will need the following things:

  1. Your Litecoin address where you would like to get your Litecoin. (I have mentioned the wallets for LTC below.)
  2. Bitcoins/other altcoins to exchange for Litecoin.

Head toward CoinSutra’s Cryptocurrency Exchange – Changelly and follow the steps given in this guide.

Note: Though this guide shows how to buy Ripple in exchange for BTC, the process is exactly the same for buying Litecoin.

Buy Litecoin from Popular Exchanges

  1. Binance-Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/ETH, LTC/BNB
  2. HTX-Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/HT
  3. KuCoin-Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/ETH, LTC/KCS
  4. Bibox-Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/ETH
  5. Bittrex– Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/ETH
  6. Bitfinex – Supported pairs are LTC/USD
  7. Livecoin – Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USD.
  8. Poloniex – Supported pairs are LTC/BTC, LTC/USDT, LTC/XMR

Popular Litecoin Wallets

Hardware Wallet

Hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano S & Trezor provide a robust and secure wallet for your crypto assets.

Both wallets support Litecoin, however, I prefer using the Ledger Nano S for my funds.

The Ledger Nano S is also the cheapest multi-currency hardware wallet available (only $65!).

If you hold plenty of cryptocurrencies, consider getting a Ledger Nano S or Trezor.

Here is a video playlist that will help you learn how to use the Ledger Nano S. This is going to help you a lot in your Bitcoin & Litecoin future:

Desktop Wallet

Exodus is a multi-cryptocurrency desktop wallet that supports Litecoin.

It is a wallet which focuses on easy usability along with ensuring the security of your digital assets. It also has a one-click email recovery feature.

And the 12-word recovery seed key feature enables you to restore your funds if you run into any issues with your device.

Exodus is available on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Download Exodus Wallet

Create Litecoin Paper Wallet

If paper wallets work for you, then head toward liteaddress.org and make one.

If you don’t know how to make a paper wallet, see our guide on how to make a Bitcoin paper wallet. Though this guide is for making a Bitcoin paper wallet, it will still help you make a paper wallet for Litecoin (it’s the same process).

SegWit, Litecoin & Atomic Swap

Segregated Witness (aka SegWit) is a blockchain scaling solution. On 10th May 2017, the Litecoin blockchain implemented SegWit with a community consensus of 95%.

In plain English, SegWit means separating the witness signatures from the transactions.

For example: Consider Litecoin blocks as wagons of a train which carry a new passenger and their luggage every 2.5 minutes. Now, you want to carry even more passengers in that same train car. To do this, you start sending the passenger’s luggage separately. Now, there is more space on the wagon for more passengers.

So for every 1 MB Litecoin block, that block carries a transaction and their witnesses (i.e. signatures) every 2.5 minutes. If we start sending the signatures separately, then more transactions would be able to happen in that 1 MB block.

So that’s what Litecoin SegWit did. The Litecoin community separated transactions and signatures, hence increasing the volume of transactions getting verified every 2.5 minutes.

Another mind-blowing feat that Litecoin has achieved after Charlie Lee returned full-time on the project is Atomic Swaps. On 20th September Litecoin and Decred were atomically swapped.

Atomic swap in simple terms means a kind of on-chain barter exchange of cryptocurrencies. It is a trustless way of exchanging two cryptocurrencies without any intermediary exchange or escrow. This type of exchange has some pre-requisites which should be present in both the cryptocurrencies that are intended to be swapped.

This type of swap or exchange would be very harmful to escrow services or centralized exchanges like Binance or ByBit etc because these atomic swap technology is free to use and has no exchange or transaction fee.

But the other thing to note is that this technology is in its infancy and I believe it would take at least 12-18 months more before it hits mainstream adoption. If you want more for more technical details of atomic swaps see here and here.

Litecoin & Bitcoin: Differences & Similarities

At the time of this writing, Litecoin is six years old and Bitcoin is eight years old.

Litecoin works in a very similar way to Bitcoin.

Both currencies also have their fair share of the market. Despite the Bitcoin boom, Litecoin has proven to be a safe haven, as it is less volatile, unlike Bitcoin.

A year back, if you made an investment of $1000 in Litecoin, it would be worth around $50,000 at present.

Litecoin also has very minimal transaction fees in comparison to Bitcoin. This makes it an obvious choice for merchants.

And the transaction confirmation timing is four times faster than Bitcoin.

And now, Litecoin is acting as a testing ground for blockchain solutions such as SegWit, Atomic Swaps, and Lightning Networks. In 2017, Litecoin went on implementing SegWit and experimenting Atomic Swaps, and now it is expected to implement Lightning Networks soon.

Litecoin had its first Annual Litecoin Summit in September 2018 which began with the keynote from Charlie Lee and here is the sneak peek into it:

Resources

Below are some links that may help you stay updated on Litecoin:

Now your turn:

So when are you buying your first Litecoin? 

Which wallet are you using to store your Litecoins and other altcoins? 

Do let me know your comments and feedback in the comments section below!

Further, Suggested Readings:

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

14 thoughts on “Litecoin Cryptocurrency: A Complete Guide for Absolute Beginners”

  1. Ulhas

    That’s awesome. Very informative. I want your opinion over this. If you had x amount of money today, Say 100 Units. Where will you invest these units in terms of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero and Litecoin.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Ulhas I’m not an expert in forecasting the price. However based on the situation given by you, here is how I would spend 100 units.
      50 on BTC
      25 ETH
      15 LTC
      10 Monero

      1. Mansoor Saleh

        which app or website do you use to buy and trade?

    2. William Pannell

      When I make a lite coin address on liteaddress.org how do I unload the wallet? Everyone says blockchain.org blockchain.info, these only seem to accept bitcoin addresses and the cites say nothing about litecoin

      1. Sudhir Khatwani

        @ William Pannell

        Hey, William, please can you be a bit clear about the question, then I would be able to answers you correctly. What do you mean by unload?

        Anyways, but if you are asking how to take out your funds from a Litecoin paper wallet then you can do so by importing your private keys of your paper wallet in a software wallet.Jaxx software wallet allows you to do so. Check here.

  2. Rudy

    Small update: Charlie is no longer working for Coinbase, he is now 100% for Litecoin

    1. Sudhir Khatwani

      @ RUDY

      Thanks Rudy

  3. Rishi

    Hi

    According my research, litecoin mining is not profitable for CPU computer.

    Please tell about scope of bytecoin.

    Thanks

  4. kake

    Check out this intro video for mining LTCs

  5. sudheer

    Thanks for the Info.

    Could you please post about any trustable sites to buy litecoin in India which are similar to Coinbase.

  6. Henri

    Hi,
    Is there any way to push Litecoin Testnet Transaction without using RPC Calls

  7. Jenny

    I am planning to invest to cryptocurrency but with the help of this article it gives me the idea that there are still a lot of altcoins. Thanks!

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