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Cryptocurrency From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Litecoin (Abbreviation: LTC; sign: Ł) is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by Bitcoin, Litecoin was among the earliest altcoins, starting in October 2011.[4][5] In technical details, the Litecoin main chain shares a slightly modified Bitcoin codebase. The practical effects of those codebase differences are lower transaction fees,[6] faster transaction confirmations,[5] and faster mining difficulty retargeting. Due to its underlying similarities to Bitcoin, Litecoin has historically been referred to as the "silver to Bitcoin's gold."[7][8][9] In 2022, Litecoin added optional privacy features via soft fork through the MWEB (MimbleWimble extension block) upgrade.[9][10]
Denominations | |
---|---|
Plural | Litecoins |
Symbol | Ł[citation needed] |
Code | LTC |
Precision | 10−8 |
Subunits | |
1⁄1000 | lites,[1] millilitecoin, mŁ |
1⁄1000000 | microlitecoins, photons, μŁ |
1⁄100000000 | litoshis |
Development | |
Original author(s) | Charlie Lee |
Initial release | 0.1.0 / 7 October 2011 |
Latest release | 0.21.2.2[2] / 2 March 2023 |
Code repository | github |
Development status | Active |
Project fork of | Bitcoin [lower-alpha 1] |
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Windows, OS X, Linux, Android |
Developer(s) | Litecoin Core Development Team |
Source model | Open source |
License | MIT License |
Ledger | |
Timestamping scheme | Proof-of-work |
Hash function | scrypt |
Block reward | Ł6.25 (as of August, 2 2023), (halved approximately every four years) |
Block time | 2.5 minutes |
Circulating supply | Ł75,001,876 (22 September 2024)[3] |
Supply limit | Ł84,000,000 |
Valuation | |
Exchange rate | US$67 (September 2024)[3] |
Administration | |
Issuing authority | decentralized, block reward |
Website | |
Website | Official website |
|
Currency codes for representing litecoin is LTC. Its Unicode character is Ł.
One litecoin is divisible to eight decimal places. Units for smaller amounts of litecoin are:
By 2011, Bitcoin mining was largely performed by GPUs.[11] This raised concern in some users that mining now had a high barrier to entry, and that CPU resources were becoming obsolete and worthless for mining. Using code from Bitcoin, a new alternative currency was created called Tenebrix (TBX). Tenebrix replaced the SHA-256 rounds in Bitcoin's mining algorithm with the scrypt function,[12] which had been specifically designed in 2009 to be expensive to accelerate with FPGA or ASIC chips.[13] This would allow Tenebrix to have been "GPU-resistant", and utilize the available CPU resources from bitcoin miners. Tenebrix itself was a successor project to an earlier cryptocurrency which replaced Bitcoin's issuance schedule with a constant block reward (thus creating an unlimited money supply).[12] However, the developers included a clause in the code that would allow them to claim 7.7 million TBX for themselves at no cost, which was criticized by users.[14]
To address this, Charlie Lee, a Google employee who would later become engineering director at Coinbase,[15] created an alternative version of Tenebrix called Fairbrix (FBX).[4] Litecoin inherits the scrypt mining algorithm from Fairbrix, but returns to the limited money supply of Bitcoin, with other changes.
Lee released Litecoin via an open-source client on GitHub on October 7, 2011.[16] The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011.
Litecoin was a source code fork of the Bitcoin Core client, originally differing by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins, different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead of SHA-256), faster difficulty retarget, and a slightly modified GUI.[citation needed]
After launch, the early growth of Litecoin was aided by its increasing exchange availability and liquidity on early exchanges such as BTC-e. During the month of November 2013, the aggregate value of Litecoin experienced massive growth which included a 100% leap within 24 hours.[17][18]
In early 2014, Lee suggested merge mining (auxPOW) Dogecoin with Litecoin to the Dogecoin community at large. In September 2014, Dogecoin began merge-mining with Litecoin.[19]
In 2020, PayPal added the ability for users to purchase a derivative of Litecoin along with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash which could not be withdrawn or spent as part of its Crypto feature.[20][21]
In September 2021, a fake press release was published on GlobeNewswire announcing a partnership between Litecoin and Walmart. This caused the price of Litecoin to increase by around 30%, before the press release was revealed as a hoax.[22]
In May 2022, MWEB (Mimblewimble Extension Blocks) upgrade was activated on the Litecoin network as a soft fork. This upgrade provides users with the option of sending confidential Litecoin transactions, in which the amount being sent is only known between the sender and receiver.[23][non-primary source needed]
In June 2022, PayPal added the ability for users to transfer Litecoin along with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash between PayPal to other wallets and exchanges.[24][non-primary source needed]
Litecoin is different in some ways from Bitcoin:
Third party vendors providing point of sale infrastructure for Litecoin include BitPay.[29]
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