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Cryptocurrencies have been gliding down the red carpet for some time, taking in the attention. The well-known volatility of the crypto market has added to the frenzy and excitement.

What is Litecoin

Charlie Lee created Litecoin (LTC) as one of the first altcoins in 2011. Its price quickly reaches 30 cents of dollar (USD), and it is swiftly traded on a few marketplaces. The cost of Litecoin fluctuates between a few tens and 3 dollars from 2011 to 2013.

Litecoin has several advantages over Bitcoin, including quicker transaction speeds and block times of just 2.5 minutes. It is thought to be more equitable and secure than the Proof-of-Work miners use in Bitcoin’s consensus algorithm known as ‘SHA-256.’

One of the primary characteristics of Scrypt is that it is very memory intensive. As tasks can’t be loaded asynchronously, mining in pools is considerably more difficult.

Litecoin Purpose

Litecoin is the most well-known and highly valued of cryptocurrencies. It’s called “the money for the Internet age,” since it was created with a specific goal in mind: to be a peer-to-peer Internet currency that allows for cheap, almost-zero cost transactions all around the world.

It was also built with the intention of assisting in Bitcoin’s effort to alleviate the world’s ever-growing and complicated payment needs. And it’s this forward-thinking, unique approach that got Litecoin into the public eye only after a few teething issues. Bugs plagued the network for a time, causing major delays in development and damaging community confidence.

However, in November 2013, Litecoin version 0.8.5.1 was released, which completely changed everything. This update addressed all known problems and bolstered Litecoin’s popularity considerably.

From that day forward, Litecoin became a popular test network owing to its resemblance to Bitcoin. Some developers implemented new features on Litecoin before implementing them on Bitcoin. Today, this is still an ongoing practice.

The Litecoin Foundation has made several intriguing decisions recently: In July, the Litecoin Foundation acquired a 9.9 percent stake in WEG Bank AG via TokenPay, a platform that provides simplified crypto-fiat money transfer services.

Litecoin has continued to be a valuable testing ground for new ideas, such as SegWit, the Lightning Network, and Atomic Swaps. Litecoin is still seen by many as a mere symbol of crypto.

Litecoin Hype

Litecoin was generally overshadowed by Bitcoin. However, it continued to be an important player in the sector, gaining a substantial increase in 2013. Many things influenced its rise in popularity.

To begin with, mining may be conducted on a basic PC without the need for expensive mining rigs. Second, in comparison to other cryptos, more coins were generated. Thirdly, the flexibility of the Litecoin team’s code and constant experimenting helped them adapt quickly to make improvements. Regular updates insured that all Litecoin software worked properly.

Lightning Network Update

Litecoin’s market value has remained in the news, with LTC taking second and third place for a long time. In May 2017, LTC adopted Segregated Witness, joining Bitcoin’s upgrade process. The Lightning Network was released in the Litecoin software and transaction speeds improved dramatically, causing LTC prices to nearly triple. On December 18th, 2017, Litecoin established an all-time high of $360.66.

Another feature that sets Litecoin apart is the Lightening Network, which made cross-chain atomic swaps simple. It essentially allowed users to swap their cryptos without using an exchange. On September 22nd, Charlie Lee himself carried out the first Litecoin/Bitcoin atomic swap.

The Volatility

With Bitcoin’s price increasing, Litecoin’s value dropped. It mirrored the rise in Bitcoin’s value. Such success, however, was relatively short-lived. On January 2, 2018, the Chinese government announced tighter restrictions on cryptocurrency trading. On that day, Bitcoin fell from $20,000 to as low as $15,900 in a 24-hour period. Litecoin’s price plummeted from about $300 to about $74 over the next two weeks.

Litecoin is currently ranked 17th in terms of market capitalization among the world’s top cryptocurrencies. Prices have finally stabilized and slightly recovered, and with a devoted community that will fight to protect Litecoin’s reputation tooth and nail, this coin continues to bubble away in the background. Back in the saddle, Charlie Lee is working on Litecoin once again. After a brief break from Coinbase, he’s back to work on the project.

Forks Coin

There have been numerous forks of Litecoin, including Junkcoin (JKC), Monacoin (MONA), Litecoin Cash (LCC), CloakCoin (CLOAK) and Einsteinium (EMC2). Lee has repeatedly denounced any fork of Litecoin as a con.

Lee is still the president of the Litecoin Foundation, which promotes and funds the development of the Litecoin blockchain. In December 2017, Lee shocked the Litecoin community by selling all of his litecoin holdings. The sale took place a few days after the digital asset hit a high of $375.29, amid allegations that Lee was influencing the LTC market through his Twitter postings. In the end, he gave conflict of interest as the reason for the sale.