What Is Litecoin (LTC)? Price, History & Where To Buy

Litecoin (LTC) is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies on the market. It’s a fork of Bitcoin’s open-source code and was originally seen as a major competitor to Bitcoin.

Current Litecoin (LTC) Price

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Historical Litecoin Price Chart

The hype surrounding Litecoin dwindled over recent years, but it still has a significantly large community of believers in the project and its future.

It remains one of the most popularly traded coins and has a market capitalization of $7,970,802,459, making it the 21st largest cryptocurrency in the world.

Litecoin was created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, and it’s commonly known as one of the original altcoins (all cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin).

How Litecoin (LTC) Works

Litecoin was originally marketed as a “lite version of Bitcoin” by founder Charlie Lee. That’s part of the reason many choose to compare its features to Bitcoin predominantly.

It’s a fork of Bitcoin, which alterations were made to the open-source Bitcoin code to create Litecoin.

It was built on the Bitcoin blockchain, and many believe Charlie Lee created Litecoin as ”a reaction to Bitcoin”.

Litecoin is primed as a peer-to-peer network devoid of a central authority. The Litecoin network offers rapid, nominal fee payments than can be seamlessly facilitated globally.

Litecoin’s network is notorious for facilitating payments quickly and cheaper than most other cryptocurrencies. Litecoin utilizes a proof of work consensus algorithm like Bitcoin.

Simply put, it requires computational effort from a network of peers to execute and validate transactions.

Because Litecoin operates using proof of work, it means that mining Litecoin is also popular among individuals with sufficient mining software. Its hashing algorithm is not as complex as Bitcoin and doesn’t require excessive computing power.

What Is Litecoin (LTC) Used For?

There are various uses for Litecoin (LTC), but the most common use is sending money to peers across the globe. It is avidly used as a P2P network for quickly sending money (LTC) and is extremely affordable ($0.40).

While many use Litecoin (LTC) is a global payment network, others choose to trade Litecoin on exchanges because it’s a volatile alternative cryptocurrency that has the potential to be profitable for traders.

It’s easiest to think of Litecoin (LTC) as a fast, efficient, and affordable means to transfer money globally – although there is more to Litecoin, this is its primary use.

Where To Buy Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin (LTC) is the 12th largest cryptocurrency globally by market cap.

LTC tokens can be purchased on several centralized crypto exchanges. But, before you’re able to purchase LTC, you’ll need to deposit fiat money onto an exchange, and sequentially LTC tokens will be credited to your LTC digital wallet on the exchange.

The crypto exchanges below are the safest place where you can buy, sell and store LTC.

Five of the most popular crypto exchanges are:

1. Binance (US Customers use Binance.US)
2. Gate.io
3. Coinbase
4. KuCoin
5. Bitfinex

All of the above exchanges allow users to buy, sell, transfer, and store LTC in a digital wallet on the exchange. You can use your debit or credit card to purchase LTC on centralized exchanges.

If you intend on transferring your LTC tokens to a wallet off of the exchange – you can choose to send them to a wallet such as Ledger Nano X or other compatible wallets.

How long has Litecoin (LTC) existed?

The alternative cryptocurrency, Litecoin, was launched in October 2011 – just two years after Bitcoin.

Litecoin foundation has been advancing the blockchain and business division, ensuring the adoption and implementation of Litecoin and its software.

What’s controversial about Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin has been around for more than ten years, and it’s one of the oldest cryptocurrencies. Though it is a popular crypto project and LTC is commonly traded, some controversies surround Litecoin.

Let’s take a look at the top two controversies surrounding Litecoin (LTC)

• Fake Press Release – In late 2021, a fake press release made its sound on the internet; it claimed that Litecoin and Walmart had gone into partnership. Sequentially, the price of Litecoin increased significantly. It quickly became evident that it was fake news, and the price of LTC plummeted.
• Charlie Lee Sold All His LTC – Among the top controversies is that Litecoin’s founder, Charlie Lee, openly stated that he sold all his coins when LTC neared its all-time high of $310. Many accused Lee of exploring the market and market manipulation, and Litecoin’s reputation was somewhat tarnished following this.

  Though, a large group of people believed this was positive because the price could no longer be manipulated by a founder who owned an enormous amount of tokens. This made LTC more ‘decentralized’ in the eyes of many people.

How many Litecoin (LTC) tokens are there?

At the time of writing, Litecoin (LTC) has a circulating supply of 70.03 million tokens (83% of the total supply).

The total supply of Litecoin (LTC) is 84,000,000.

Can Litecoin (LTC) be mined?

Yes, Litecoin can be mined. Mining Litecoin is significantly easier than mining Bitcoin. The hashing algorithm, the scrypt mining algorithm, uses less computing power, making it easier to mine than Bitcoin.

Fun fact: You can merge mine Dogecoin and Litecoin at the same time without using additional computing power.

What is the market cap of Litecoin (LTC)?

The market cap of Litecoin (LTC) is:

Litecoin (LTC) market cap = total amount of coins in circulation x current market price of LTC

Litecoin (LTC) Market Cap = 70,038,968 x $113.82 = $7.97 billion (21st largest market cap)

The market cap fluctuates according to circulating supply and market price.

Biggest Competitors Of Litecoin (LTC)

When it comes to Litecoin and its competitors, some factors need to be considered when deciding what cryptocurrencies are true ‘competitors’ of Litecoin.

Any digital currency that is predominantly used for sending payments globally is a competitor to Litecoin – if they are more efficient.

A notable competitor is Solana which can process 65,000 transactions per second and has nominal transaction fees.

Another factor to consider is how long Litecoin has been around. It maintained a position in the top 10 cryptocurrencies for longer than 400 weeks and peaked at #3.

Many believe that Bitcoin is the only true competitor to Litecoin because Litecoin is a Bitcoin fork and was created to improve on Bitcoin.

However, BTC has remained at the helm of cryptocurrencies, and Litecoin has dwindled in popularity and market capitalization over recent years.

Additionally, Litecoin adopted Segwit, which was initially proposed for Bitcoin in 2015. It aims to solve the scalability dilemma, and Litecoin could test it because of the similarities between Bitcoin and Litecoin.

For the abovementioned reasons, it can be deemed that Bitcoin is the unrivaled competitor of Litecoin. After all, Litecoin was a “reaction to the creation of Bitcoin.”

What are the future plans for Litecoin (LTC) and the Litecoin foundation

Litecoin, altered but built initially on the Bitcoin blockchain, will continue to increase user adoption and trading frequency on major cryptocurrency exchanges.

It was recently announced that the privacy protocol, MimbleWimble, is being actively pursued by Litecoin. It aims to reduce block size and effectively optimize scalability.

The success of Litecoin depends on developments that make it more appealing to users. Its implementations include utilizing the Lightning Network, which is currently experiencing rapid adoption as a payment method and offers integration for Litecoin.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is currently home to the 2nd highest Litecoin trading, after Binance.

Pros and Cons of Litecoin network, Litecoin blockchain, and Litecoin transactions

Pros:

• Litecoin is 4x faster than BTC – Litecoin was initially built to be an improvement on Bitcoin, and evidently, it can facilitate transactions four times faster than Bitcoin.
• Its Supply is Relatively Low – Litecoin has a much lower supply than many other cryptocurrencies. Litecoin’s total fixed supply is only 84,000,000.
• It’s Mineable – Litecoin utilizes proof of work which makes it mineable. Its hashing difficulty is also significantly less complex than Bitcoin’s. This makes it easier to mine Litecoin.
• One Of The Oldest Cryptocurrencies – Litecoin, has been around for more than ten years. It is known as an original altcoin and was initially deemed a competitor to Bitcoin. Because it’s been around for so many years, it is trusted by many people and seen as a safe investment.

Cons:

• The Founder Sold All His Litecoin Tokens – Charlie Lee openly admitted to selling all of his Litecoin tokens near the previous all-time high of around $310. This sparked outrage in the community, and Lee was accused of exploiting and manipulating the market. For that reason, many people lost faith in the Litecoin project.
• It’s Fallen Far Behind Many Projects – Although Litecoin is still popularly traded and has among the largest market caps – it’s fallen behind. Litecoin was in the top ten biggest cryptocurrencies for almost seven years but recently has slipped drastically to 21st position. Many people believe that it won’t make a return to the top ten and that it’s simply outdated and can’t compete with up-and-coming altcoins.

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