About Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) is one of the earliest "altcoins," or alternative versions of Bitcoin, that rose to prominence and has remained popular ever since. It was designed to be cheaper to use and faster to confirm in transactions, important for both customers and merchants if crypto is to become widely accepted as a currency.
Crypto transactions happen all the time but are confirmed at intervals, kind of like when you use a credit card and see the charges as pending until a later date. Litecoin transactions are confirmed every 2.5 minutes, four times faster than the 10 minutes required for Bitcoin transactions.
Litecoin also has four times the supply limit of Bitcoin (84 million vs 21 million) -- nearly every crypto is designed with a fixed supply to avoid devaluing the currency. This difference in supply is the reason why Litecoin is often considered the silver to Bitcoin's gold, since the values of those precious metals are largely based on scarcity.
Quick facts
- Using the experimental accelerator called Lightning Network, litecoins travelled from Zurich to San Francisco in less than 1 second.
- The total number of Litecoins that can ever exist is 84 million. This might seem like a lot, but for perspective there are over 12 billion $1 bills in circulation today.
Worth searching online to learn more about Litecoin:
- Lightning Network
- Crypto supply limit
- Litecoin Foundation
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