Features of Litecoin:

• Four times faster than Bitcoin
• Larger coin limit
• Harder to mine with parallel processors.

Litecoin has been in existence since 2011.  It was created by the Director of Engineering at Coinbase and the former employee of Google, Charlie Lee. The developers of Litecoin define it as an internet currency that allows instant and near-zero cost transactions to anyone around the world. Since Bitcoin and Litecoin has a common base blockchain, Litecoin share several features with the former.

What makes Litecoin Different?

Litecoin has several advantages over Bitcoin like the reduced transaction time, number of coins in circulation, etc. The Litecoin network processes a block every 2.5 minutes which is four time faster than Bitcoin’s. This results in quicker and higher transactions. Also, Litecoin has a supply of around 84 million tokens in which 54.83 million are in circulation (which is again four times that of Bitcoin).

While Bitcoin uses the processor-intensive SHA256 algorithm, Litecoin makes use of the memory-intensive scrypt algorithm. Scrypt was designed with an aim to make it expensive and difficult for processor-intensive machines to mine Litecoin.

So the network can’t be controlled by miners just because they own several ASIC miners.  This contributes to a much more decentralized system and makes the altcoin more accessible to people around everywhere.

Litecoin’s Rise to Fame

Due to its low fees, ease and speed of transaction, Litecoin is now one of the most accepted cryptocurrencies. The price of Litecoin on January 2017 was $4.36 which shot up to a value of $245 in December 2017, and the market cap at tremendous $13.32 billion.  It ranks fourth in the category of highest valued cryptocurrency, and almost all retail shops and cryptocurrency exchanges have started accepting Litecoin.

Coinbase which is one of the largest exchanges and the easiest way to invest in Litecoin. It is one of the three cryptocurrencies offered by them, the other two being Bitcoin and Ethereum. Litecoin is also among the first currencies to be used in the cross blockchain network’s lightning networks. One of the major factors which boosted the Litecoin’s market is its acceptance across countries like South America, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea.