What is Litecoin?
Litecoin (unit: LTC) is a crypto asset by former Google engineer, Charlie Lee, and was launched in October 2011.
The market capitalization of Litecoin as of July 2022 was about 260 billion JPY). Since 2014, the top ranked altcoins have been constantly changing places with each other as more came flooding in. However, Litecoin has been said to have achieved a comparatively stable growth.
History of Litecoin
Lee came across Bitcoin in 2011 and was fascinated by its ideas. In October of the same year, he released Litecoin on Bitcointalk (an internet forum dedicated to the discussion of crypto assets related information) and started its operation.
Before he started developing Litecoin, he was involved in developing other crypto assets but did not find success. Taking a cue from these failed attempts, he decided to develop his own crypto assets, Litecoin.
Charlie Lee’s goal was to develop a crypto asset modeled closely on Bitcoin, which is viewed as digital gold and found significance in positioning Litecoin as digital silver. Gold and silver have been used to store value since ancient times. By comparing the values of gold and silver to crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, people can understand the value of Litecoin, which has led to its acceptance.
In this way, rather than unseating Bitcoin, Litecoin was developed as a crypto asset to complement the shortcomings of Bitcoin. The idea was that rather than competing in the crypto assets industry, Litecoin could also benefit from the market’s expansion.
How Litecoin works
Litecoin is based on the same technology as Bitcoin, thus the basic structure is the same.
Litecoin is open source and fully decentralized by the use of blockchain technology. Litecoin is managed by multiple people by using the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm, the same method of consensus building that is used by Bitcoin.
The halving of Litecoin happens about once every four years. When Litecoin launched in 2011, the initial amount issued to miners was 50 LTC. In 2015, it was reduced to 25 LTC.
Future prospects of Litecoin
In 2018, Litecoin implemented Lightning Network (LN) technology, which was designed to significantly improve both the transaction fees and remittance speed to enable smaller payments (micropayments).
Furthermore, Mimble Wimble support for Litecoin was announced in February 2019. Mimble Wimble is a technology that optimizes anonymity and protects the privacy of the users. Litecoin as a crypto asset suitable for everyday use is positioned to enhance convenience and safety in the years to come.