Five Reasons Why Litecoin is Totally Awesome
There is a huge number of different cryptocurrencies out there and this number is growing as the technology keeps evolving. When we think about cryptocurrencies we normally think of the king – Bitcoin. We cannot disagree on this, Bitcoin is definitely the greatest crypto out there today but we also cannot dismiss other altcoins. In this article I will have a look at what Litecoin is all about and why we absolutely love it. Litecoin is currently the number 3 cryptocurrency. Currently following Bitcoin and Ethereum like a true trooper. Litecoin was created by Charles Lee – a former Google engineer. The birth of Litecoin was back in 2011 and Charles Lee was inspired by Bitcoin and wanted to improve some of its features.
- Fast transaction confirmation
Litecoin’s mean block time is 2.5 minutes. This is 4 times faster than Bitcoin’s 10 minute mean block time. Think of Litecoin as Bitcoin’s little brother – smaller, quicker and maybe not as cautious as its sibling. Thanks to the shorter block time Litecoin can also allow a higher volume of transactions. On the flipside there’s a greater probability of orphaned blocks.
- Mining Litecoin still makes sense
When Bitcoin golden mining days are now probably over for someone doing it on a non-commercial scale, you can still mine a significant amount of Litecoins. The reason behind this is that Litecoin uses a different algorithm called scrypt. It wants a large amount of high-speed RAM rather than focusing on just raw processing power. To really understand the difference – Bitcoin network total hashing rate is more than 20 000 Terra Hashes per second. Litecoin’s is only 95 000 Mega Hashes per second. Which means that you can still get a decent amount of Litecoins when mining as the difficulty hasn’t yet massively increased. On the flipside – Bitcoin is worth over a 100 times more. Then again as we know prices can rise so maybe you should still be thinking of collecting a nice amount of Litecoins.
- Litecoin limit is 84 million coins
That’s 4 times more than Bitcoin. If the price were to skyrocket that’s a huge amount of difference.
- Reduced risk of double spending
As Litecoin’s block time is 4 times less than Bitcoin’s this significantly reduces the risk of double spending attacks over the same time period. This is considered in situations when both of the networks have the same hashing power
- All the awesome features a cryptocurrency should have
Litecoin is a true crypto – its a peer-to-peer, open source and a totally decentralized cryptocurrency. All the features a true crypto needs. Without these features a crypto just isn’t a crypto. The whole essence of this financial revolution, if I may call it that, is that your government or banks do not control it. Onecoin for example is not a cryptocurrency but a standard ponzi scheme, I won’t go any further with that.
Which is better – Litecoin or Bitcoin?
I’ve been asked this question many times and my answer is this. I don’t think it should be a competition. If we compare Bitcoin and Litecoin we could look similarly at comparing gold and silver. They are both great and serve similar but slightly different purposes. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, they have the same core essence but slightly different features. So no, Litecoin is not better than Bitcoin. And also the reverse of that is not true. They are both great and will bring us so many new opportunities. Trading Litecoin can also provide you a lucrative income trading just as trading BTC on an exchange would. Whilst so many new cryptos start and fail rather quickly, I am definite that Litecoin is going to stick it out in the long run.
Join the revolution and get your Litecoin!