What is Litecoin? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from each other and better understand the world.

Reply by joseph kennedyFounder of Content Pathway, the Quora:

Litecoin (LTC or Ł [1]) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project released under MIT/X11 licenses. The creation and transfer of coins is based on an open source cryptography protocol and is not managed by any central authority. Although inspired by, and in most respects almost technically identical to, Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin is much faster and cheaper.

Litecoin prices, having had a great year, recently surged to a new all-time high.

Huge market growth

On December 18, 2017, Litecoin reached its all-time high of $360.93, which, compared to the price of the previous year ($4.40), was an incredible 8,200% increase. This fully reflects a booming cryptocurrency market, whose total market capitalization soared from $17.7 billion to around $650 billion in just one year, an increase of more than 3,600%.

Litecoin as a tool of the future

Litecoin is frequently compared to Bitcoin, which works almost exactly the same apart from the cost of transactions, which are about 1/50th the size. For many cryptocurrency traders and users, Litecoin price acts more rationally than Bitcoin and with a more sustainable future.

As we see some online stores start accepting cryptocurrencies, we will see it become possible to purchase jewelry, groceries, clothing, electronics, and more. Since the value of Litecoin is determined by demand on forex trading websites such as Bitfinex, OKEx, GDAX, and Coinbase, it is possible to imagine an online shopping platform where the price of commodities is constantly changing to reflect the value of accepted currencies.

As well as trading and buying Litecoin, it is possible to mine it, although this is a very technical activity and requires a decent amount of computer knowledge. A good computer is enough to mine coins very slowly, but a serious miner would use processing units that quickly solve the mathematical equations that support the blockchain.

Trade Litecoin

The rise in popularity of Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies is largely in response to the demand for alternative currency options that break away from centralized banks and governments. The other side of the lawsuit comes from traders and investors who have realized the huge potential that cryptocurrencies offer, and many stock and forex traders have turned the market around (remember, the market grew from $17.7-650 billion in a anus). Cryptocurrency is arguably easier for traders to enter, which means that in 2017, millions of beginners as well as experienced traders started buying and selling different coins.

Litecoin as a global tool

Litecoins can be used anywhere (albeit illegally in some nations), by anyone. The fees Litecoin users experience are lower than those of credit card companies and bank transfers. For example, a person in France can send a payment to someone in China in seconds, and both parties receive proof of the transaction (which will be stored on the blockchain). Litecoin was designed to allow fast and cheap payments that are as simple as sending an email.

84 million litecoins

There can only be 84 million Litecoins and as it stands, 55.58 million have already been released or mined, meaning nearly 30 million coins are still fair game for miners. The 84 million figure was based on Bitcoin’s 21 million limit and the fact that Litecoin was designed to be 4 times faster than Bitcoin.

A fixed number of coins also means that inflation will not affect the overall value of the coin, unlike currencies like the dollar, pound, or euro. For forex traders who feel that the value of a coin may lose value, they can buy Litecoins and keep their investment before selling their coin back (hopefully at a profit). Outside influences (such as governments) can manipulate the value of your currency through inflation and quantitative easing, but the same cannot be done with Litecoin, making it more sustainable in the long run.

Founder of Litecoin

Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee in October 2011. Lee is a former employee of Google, who designed it to complement Bitcoin by solving some of its problems, such as transaction times, fees, and concentrated mining pools. Charlie Lee took the core code of Bitcoin and made his modifications to the code and protocol to make it work in the way that he believed would allow for wide-scale adoption of the currency.

One of Litecoin’s main goals was to reduce block confirmation times from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes, so that more transactions could be confirmed. This made Litecoin 4 times faster than Bitcoin. Every 2.5 minutes, a Litecoin block is mined and 25 coins are generated. This means that 14,400 Litecoins are currently being mined every day, the maximum amount possible.

Conclution

Litecoin has a lot of room for growth, potential uses, and wide adoption. Right now, we need to see which companies are beginning to adopt it and accept transactions for their products and services. Other than that, the future of Litecoin is anyone’s guess.

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