How to Buy Litecoin 

Do you want to learn how to buy Litecoin (LTC)? We have an excellent guide on how and where to buy Litecoin and some suggestions on the best LTC storage options.

What Is Litecoin?

As you probably already know, Bitcoin was the world’s first peer-to-peer cryptocurrency payment system. Litecoin was the second and launched as a “lightweight” peer-to-peer payment system that mimicked certain qualities of Bitcoin while promising improvements over the original.

Some of these promises Litecoin managed to keep: it implemented a different hashing algorithm than Bitcoin, aiming to shorten block processing times to execute faster transactions, as well as prevent industrial coin mining. 

Unfortunately, changing the hashing algorithm failed to prevent industrial mining, as LTC can be mined with ASIC miners. 

Bitcoin and Lİtecoin are similar in many ways — both are blockchain-based payment systems. In fact, Litecoin was built on a fork of Bitcoin and uses a very similar coding base. While Bitcoin is often called “Digital Gold,” supporters claim Litecoin is “Digital Silver.”

Since LTC’s monetary value is significantly less than BTC, the asset is more suitable than BTC for instant transactions and purchases (Bitcoin holders prefer to hold on to their “digital gold” after all.) Litecoin blockchain is less crowded than Bitcoin’s, which enables faster and cheaper transactions.

Litecoin has remained a popular cryptocurrency thanks to early adopters and its large support base. As of August 2023, it’s the 15th biggest cryptocurrency in the market.

However, keep in mind that some Kore-based cryptocurrency exchanges delisted Litecoin following the MimbleWimble upgrade in 2019 due to the incompatibility of the upgrade with local regulations. The MimbleWimble upgrade increases the anonymity of LTC transactions and increases user privacy, but it also pushes Litecoin closer to the “privacy-first coins” like Monero, which are heavily scrutinized due to their use in illegal operations.

While Litecoin has lost significant ground with the emergence of newer and more exciting cryptocurrency projects, it is also one of the oldest projects around and has proven to be quite resilient. Crypto projects can rise up the ranks one year only to tumble down to bankruptcy the next. With that in mind, Litecoin at least seems to have an organized base of users that keeps the project floating, a feat that many other projects currently more popular than Litecoin haven’t yet reached.

What Is the LTC token?

Litecoin (LTC) is the native cryptocurrency of Litecoin. The total supply for LTC is around 84 million, and almost 74 million has been mined as of September 2023. Like Bitcoin, Litecoin mining rewards are halved every four years, decreasing Litecoin block rewards and the amount of LTC that can be mined.

The most recent Litecoin halving was on August 2023, decreasing the block rewards from 12.5 to 6.25 LTC.  

You can check out Litecoin’s price and market cap over time on CoinmarketCap.

Where Can I Buy Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin is available on almost any cryptocurrency exchange but also can be bought on financial apps and third-party sellers.

We usually recommend beginners buy cryptocurrencies on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance. If you haven’t decided yet, we reviewed the 21 most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the market to help you find the best platform for your purposes.

You can also find detailed reviews of each platform and comparisons of their benefits and drawbacks on Coinkickoff. We strongly recommend you check out these detailed reviews before committing to a platform.

Of course, some people might benefit from different approaches. For example, if you already use financial apps like Robinhood, eToro, or PayPal, you can invest in Litecoin through these services. 

While the services aren’t optimized for crypto trading, they still help you invest and keep your assets in check, and they are more beginner-friendly and convenient if you are already using them for money transfers and other investments. On the other hand, coin prices are more expensive on these apps, and the fees are considerably higher, so they are not the most profitable options.

You can also buy Litecoin on decentralized exchanges where users swap digital assets without third-party interference. Seasoned crypto traders prefer decentralized exchanges like Sushiswap and PancakeSwap due to lower fees and increased anonymity.

Overall, the decision depends on your short and long-term plans: Do you plan to buy and hold for a long time, and feel more comfortable using a financial app than a crypto exchange? If that’s the case, Robinhood can be a good idea.

On the other hand, if you plan to buy other digital assets and make frequent trades, a cryptocurrency exchange will be the best option.

Of course, these are generalized suggestions. Let’s see where and how to buy Litecoin in more detail.

How to Buy Litecoin?

When you are buying digital assets there are three important questions to answer: Where should you buy them, where should you store them, and how do you want to pay for them? Let us share our suggestions.

Where to Buy Litecoin?

If you are a beginner or if you don’t yet hold any digital assets, centralized crypto exchanges are your best option for a simple reason: most centralized crypto exchanges allow you to buy crypto assets with fiat currencies (national currencies like USD, AUD, GBP, EUR and so on.)

Once you buy digital assets with fiat currencies, you can swap them for other currencies on both centralized and decentralized exchanges. But for most beginners, picking the right centralized exchange is the first hurdle toward crypto ownership.

There are literally hundreds of centralized exchanges in the market and most of these exchanges are scams or pyramid schemes. Among a handful of actually functioning exchanges, there are several with little to no liquidity that are completely useless. In fact, even bigger exchanges with high liquidity and large trading volumes suffer from issues like poor customer service (at best) and enabling predatory trading strategies against customers (the worst).

So how do you choose a good exchange to buy Litecoin? First, let’s look at the exchanges with large Litecoin markets that will offer you good liquidity.

Coinbase and Kraken both offer large LTC/USD markets, and Kraken also offers the largest EUR/LETC market in the world. If you want to buy large amounts of LTC in USD or EUR, these two are excellent options.

Coinbase is a publicly traded cryptocurrency company that helps users buy, trade, and store digital assets since 2012. It’s considered a veteran exchange and is often recommended to beginners due to its beginner-friendly approach. 

Kraken is another veteran exchange based in the US. Its advantages include excellent customer service and good asset security. Kraken also offers several crypto/EUR markets in addition to crypto/USD pairs.

Of course, these are not your only options. Binance and Kucoin, for example, offer large USDT/LTC markets in addition to several other altcoin markets. You can buy USDT with fiat currencies on these exchanges, and then use USDT to make LTC purchases without worrying about liquidity issues.

Binance is the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange and is known for its large selection of available digital assets and cheap fees. The exchange is accessible from many countries (with the exception of North America, Japan, Belgium, and the Netherlands) where Kraken and Coinbase don’t operate.

Kucoin is another global exchange that’s not available to US-based users but is open to most of the world. It offers several trading pairs, including USDT/LTC and BTC/LTC markets. 

You may want to check out our individual reviews for these centralized crypto exchanges before you make a final decision. 

How to Buy Litecoin

Once you decide on a crypto exchange and open an account, it’s quite easy to buy Litecoin.

Us-based exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken require users to complete ID verification before they can buy or trade digital assets. The ID verification is a simple procedure that only takes a couple of minutes: You answer a few questions about your residence status and upload proof of ID such as a residence permit, passport, or driver’s license.

Binance and Kucoin aren’t very stringent with KYC checks and you can usually skip the ID verification.

All four exchanges offer an “Easy Buy” for beginners and a more complicated “Spot Market” where users can buy Litecoin. Let’s how they work.

Easy Buy

Sign in to your chosen exchange and click the “Buy Crypto” button on your dashboard.

For example, on Binance, you can see the “Buy Crypto” tab right next to the Binance logo on the upper-right side of the page. You will be redirected to an easy buy form that allows you to buy a digital asset in a few clicks.

All you have to do is enter the amount you want to invest in Lİtecoin and select LTC as the asset you want to receive. Hit “Buy LTC” and select a payment option.

If you completed ID verification, you can enter your credit card information at this stage and complete your purchase. The only downside is the huge card fee you must pay — most exchanges charge up to 5% of your order as card processing fees. 

Another option is to use third-party payment channels like Banxa, Simplex, and MoonPay. These payment channels accept a variety of payment methods, including debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Bank deposits. Fees vary depending on the payment channel, but you can see how much you will pay before going forward with this option. 

Finally, you can make a fiat currency deposit to the exchange. Domestic bank transfers are usually free, and there are fewer fees when you select your fiat account as the payment method.

Spot Market

Spot Markets are the bread and butter of crypto trading — most traders don’t use “Easy Buy” for trading and swapping coins because of high fees and limited coin availability. Instead, they head towards the spot market, where they can find the best possible deals for their assets.

Basically, spot trading allows you to exchange currencies at the rates you decide. The spot trading interface contains an “order book” that displays all the orders traders place. You can see how much other traders charge for their assets and place counter offers to make the best deals.

You can find a spot market on almost every crypto exchange, and all four we suggested above offer LTC markets for trading.

As we said above, Binance and Kucoin do not offer USD/LTC markets but operate very liquid USDT/LTC markets. So while you can’t trade USD for LTC directly, you can buy USDT and trade it for LTC on the spot market.

USDT is a popular stablecoin that is often used for trading altcoins. Most users buy USDT and use it to buy other digital assets.

Kraken and Coinbase do offer USD/LTC markets, which allow you to make fewer trades to get what you want (and pay fewer fees.) However, Kucoin and Binance charge smaller fees for spot trades, so the difference evens out.

Click on the “Trade” tab on your dashboard and hit “Spot” or “Spot Market” to start. The spot trading interface looks complicated, but it’s actually easy to use. All you have to do is to find the “Markets” panel. You will see a list of markets in this panel with tickers like BTC/USD, USDT/BTC, USDT/ETH, USDT/LTC, and so on.

Select the trading pair you want to swap, and you will see an order form for the pairing you want to trade. Fill out the form by adjusting the amount you want to buy.

For more detailed instructions, you can check out our articles on How to Buy Litecoin on Coinbase, How to Buy Litecoin on Binance, How to Buy Litecoin on  Kraken, and How to Buy Litecoin on Kucoin.

How to Store Litecoin (LTC)?

Experienced crypto traders understand that storage is the most crucial part of crypto ownership and that the choice of a crypto wallet can make or break a trader. 

When you buy crypto assets, you don’t receive a physical receipt for your purchase or a digital file that contains your coins. The only proof of a crypto transaction is a record of your trade on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain that reads something like this “The X address sent Y amount of crypto to Z wallet.” Of course, the real thing is a bit more complicated, but the essence is the same.

The trouble is, since cryptocurrencies are traded pseudonymously, nobody knows who owns the X or Z addresses. So if you are the owner of address Z, you have to hold the cryptographic proof of your ownership. 

That proof of ownership, also known as a “private key” is embedded in your crypto wallet. As long as you control your wallet, you can access, transfer, and monitor your funds without a hitch. 

While that sounds pretty simple in theory, it works quite differently in practice. For example, when you buy Litecoin on centralized exchanges like the ones we suggested above, your LTC is deposited to a wallet on the exchange. And while you can control your assets through the exchange, you don’t actually control the wallet they are deposited in. You don’t have the wallet keys, you only have the exchange password that grants you user access.

In other words, as far as the blockchain is concerned, you don’t own these assets — the exchange does. 

As you can guess, this can cause several issues down the road. If an exchange is bankrupt, your assets will be seized by the authorities as part of the exchange’s assets, and you may not see a dime until several years have passed (and by then, the value of your assets may have dropped tremendously).

Another problem is that the exchange can steal your assets and disappear, leaving you no way of recovering your funds.

The exchange may be hacked and resort to socializing the losses among users, leaving you with fewer assets than you actually paid for.

All three scenarios are unfortunately pretty common in the crypto ecosystem. That’s why crypto owners try to secure their assets by using different storage options. Let’s check out these options to see the best way of storing your funds.

Custodial Exchange Wallets

Alright, we just laid down the drawbacks of using exchange wallets so you may be wondering if custodial exchange wallets are the way to go. But the truth is, exchange wallets have quite a few benefits or people wouldn’t use them.

First of all, exchange wallets are incredibly convenient for frequent traders. You can trade your assets instantly on the exchange spot market, and speed is everything when it comes to making profitable crypto trades. 

Secondly, most exchanges allow you to stake your assets to make profits. You leave your cryptocurrency in the exchange wallet and earn interest from your funds without lifting a finger.

Finally, you don’t have to deal with the complexities of keeping your wallet safe from hackers. With other storage options, you must learn to set them up and securely operate them. With an exchange wallet, all you need is your password and you are good to go.

Overall, an exchange wallet can be a good storage option if you are making frequent trades and don’t want to deal with the hassle of learning to use other storage methods. However, we recommend you keep only a fraction of your assets in an exchange wallet. Do not leave huge sums in your wallet, lest you lose it all.

The Official Litecoin Wallet: LiteWallet

You may think that using a non-custodial wallet absolves you of the risks we outlined above, and it does — to a degree.

Unfortunately, software wallets come with a new set of risks: while these wallets are yours to control, that’s only true if you can manage to keep them safe from hackers. 

Software wallets work on devices connected to the internet: Your computer, tablet, or mobile device. Unfortunately, that also makes them vulnerable to attacks. If your device is infected with a virus, your private key can be stolen, and others may take control of your funds.

Software wallets use a number of security measures to minimize that risk: most of them require 2FA to confirm your identity. Some of them only work on authorized devices to ensure others can’t access your crypto. Almost all have a backup function you can use if your device is stolen or otherwise inaccessible. But hackers are wily and creative, and software wallets, although convenient, come with serious security risks.

Nonetheless, if you want a convenient way to trade Litecoin without using exchange wallets, a software wallet is your best option. 

Litecoin has its own native wallet, LiteWallet, developed by the Litecoin Foundation in 2011. The wallet is updated regularly and comes equipped with the MimbleWimble (MWEB) upgrade to increase your privacy and keep your LTC balance hidden.

The transaction fees are quite cheap even on high-traffic days and the transaction speed is significantly higher than Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies.

Multicurrency Software Wallets for Litecoin

Since LiteWallet is Litecoin’s official wallet, it can only be used to send and receive LTC. If you are planning on investing in multiple cryptocurrencies, it’s better to use a multicurrency wallet that will enable you to monitor and trade several assets at once.

Atomic Wallet, Trust Wallet, and Exodus are some of the most famous multicurrency software wallets you can use. 

Atomic Wallet isn’t open source and doesn’t offer hardware wallet integration for increased security, but it enables “Atomic Swaps” which allows you to trade currencies within the wallet interface.

Exodus isn’t open source either but offers hardware integration with Trezor wallets to amp up your security. You can also trade cryptocurrencies within the wallet interface.

Finally, Trust Wallet is both open-source and offers hardware integration with Ledger hardware wallets for increased security.

Hardware Wallets

Exchange wallets and software wallets share the same vulnerability — they are connected to the internet and, therefore can be hacked.

Hardware wallets, on the other hand, are not connected to the internet. They are basically hard drives with wallet software and can’t be hacked even when they are connected to your computer

Hard wallets are multicurrency wallets by design. They can store thousands of digital assets and can be used along with software wallets to increase your security. You can also use them together with software wallets to execute fast crypto transactions.

Most hard wallets come with PIN protection to ensure that your funds are safe even if your device is stolen. They also have backup functions, so if your device is lost, you can still access your assets.

Overall, hardware wallets are the safest way to store your crypto: You control your keys, and hackers can’t access your funds.

However, hardware wallets can be expensive: The prices range from 80 to 250 USD, depending on wallet functions. The most famous hard wallet 

If you are considering buying a hardware wallet, check out Ledger, Coolwallet, Trezor, and Ellipal Titan.