What Is Litecoin?

About Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin is a type of decentralized cryptocurrency based on open source cryptographic protocol. Nowadays Litecoin is known as silver of the cryptocurrency world.

Where did Litecoin (LTC) come from?

Litecoin was released in 2011 by a Google employee, Charlie Lee. He is known as an active participator of a cryptocurrency community. His main goal was not to replace Bitcoin, but to make transactions faster. So in the year 2017 there was the first transaction that happened less than in 1 second. Although Litecoin is very similar to Bitcoin, it has a number of differences. It was a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, differing primarily by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins, different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead of SHA-256), and a slightly modified GUI (Graphical User Interface). In November 2013 it started to experience a massive growth. In the year 2017 Litecoin became one of the first cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness. It seems that Charlie Lee is not going to stop. And Litecoin is changing to the better.

What are the advantages of Litecoin (LTC)?

In comparison with Bitcoin Litecoin has a number of advantages.

1. It is an open source project
   
   That means that it can easily implement technological improvements.
2. It is fast
   
   Litecoin confirms 4 times faster than Bitcoin.
3. It is expected to produce 84 million coins, which is much more than Bitcoin.
4. It is built upon Scrypt
   
   That makes mining on ordinary computers easier than for Bitcoin.
5. Low transaction fee

What are the disadvantages of Litecoin (LTC)?

However, there are a few things that can make you think twice before using LTC.

1. Since there is no authority that controls transactions, your savings are at risk
   
   If it's stolen or lost, nobody can help you to find it.
2. Mining is too centralized
   
   Although Litecoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency, recently introduced the Litecoin mining machine takes about 50% of the total network.
3. It doesn't offer absolute anonymity

How to buy Litecoin (LTC) on SimpleSwap?

Let’s say you want to buy Litecoin. What should you do? We suggest you go to the SimpleSwap homepage and follow the instructions below:

1. For example, you want to swap BTC for LTC. Select the currency you want to exchange (e.g. BTC) in the first drop-downlist. Then enter the amount you want to swap.
2. Select LTC in the second drop-down list. You’ll see the estimated amount that you’ll get after the exchange.
3. Click the Exchange button.
4. Enter the Recipient's Address. LTC will be sent. Be careful and make sure you use the correct address.
5. Create the exchange.
6. You will see the Bitcoin deposit address. You need to transfer the necessary amount of BTC to this address to start the BTC to LTC exchange.

SimpleSwap reminds you that this article is provided for informational purposes only and does not provide investment advice. All purchases and cryptocurrency investments are your own responsibility.