Litecoin

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Litecoin
6 Full Logo S-2.png
Official Litecoin logo
Denominations
PluralLitecoins
SymbolŁ[ citation needed ]
CodeLTC
Precision10−8
Subunits
 1⁄1000lites, [1] millilitecoin, mŁ
 1⁄1000000microlitecoins, photons, μŁ
 1⁄100000000litoshis
Development
Original author(s) Charlie Lee
Initial release0.1.0 / 7 October 2011;13 years ago (2011-10-07)
Latest release 0.21.4 [2] / 2 March 2023;2 years ago (2023-03-02)
Code repository github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin
Development statusActive
Project fork of Bitcoin [a]
Written in C++
Operating system Windows, OS X, Linux, Android
Developer(s) Litecoin Core Development Team
Source model Open source
License MIT License
Ledger
Ledger start7 October 2011(13 years ago) (2011-10-07)
Timestamping scheme Proof-of-work
Hash function scrypt
Issuance scheduleBlock reward: initially Ł50, halved every 840,000 blocks
Block rewardŁ6.25 (as of 2023)
Block time2.5 minutes
Circulating supplyŁ75,310,895 (16 December 2024) [3]
Supply limitŁ84,000,000
Valuation
Exchange rate US$123.02 (December 2024) [3]
Website
Website litecoin.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  1. ↑ Source code fork shouldn't be confused with hard forks or soft forks.

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]

Contents

History

Pre-Litecoin

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.

Creation and launch

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 ]

2011–2016

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]

2017–2021

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]

2022–present

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 ]

Differences from Bitcoin

Litecoin is different in some ways from Bitcoin:

Third party vendors providing point of sale infrastructure for Litecoin include BitPay. [29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ renaming of mLTC/μLTC to lites/photons https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/pull/375 Archived 2021-12-08 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ "Litecoin Core v0.21.4 Release". litecoin.org. 7 November 2024. Retrieved 2024-12-16.
  3. 1 2 "Litecoin (LTC) Price Today". Revolut . Retrieved 2024-12-16.
  4. 1 2 "Ex-Googler Gives the World a Better Bitcoin". WIRED. Archived from the original on 2018-07-09. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
  5. 1 2 Gibbs, Toby; Yordchim, Suwaree (2014). "Thai Perception on Litecoin Value" (PDF). International Journal of Social, Education, Economics and Management Engineering. 8 (8): 2589–2591. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-07-22. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
  6. ↑ Miglietti, Cynthia; Kubosova, Zdenka; Skulanova, Nicole (20 May 2019). "Bitcoin, Litecoin, and the Euro: an annualized volatility analysis". Studies in Economics and Finance. 37 (2): 229–242. doi:10.1108/SEF-02-2019-0050. S2CID   199363476.
  7. ↑ Mandjee, Tara (2014). "Bitcoin, its legal classification and its regulatory framework". Journal of Business & Securities Law. 15. Archived from the original on 2022-07-15. Retrieved 2022-07-15.
  8. ↑ Jumaili, Mustafa Lateef Fadhil; Karim, Sulaiman M (2021). "Comparison of two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and Litecoin". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 1963 (1): 7. Bibcode:2021JPhCS1963a2143J. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1963/1/012143 . S2CID   236441485.
  9. 1 2 Ismail, Ashiana. "Permissioned blockchains for real world applications." PhD diss., 2020.
  10. 1 2 Hake, Mark R. (February 14, 2022). "Litecoin Should See Broader Appeal With New Privacy Technology". Nasdaq. Archived from the original on July 15, 2022. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
  11. ↑ Browne, Ryan (2017-12-20). "Litecoin founder Charlie Lee says he's sold all his holdings in the cryptocurrency". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2021-02-02. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  12. 1 2 Lee, David, ed. (May 5, 2015). Handbook of Digital Currency: Bitcoin, Innovation, Financial Instruments, and Big Data. Elsevier Science. ISBN   9780128023518.
  13. ↑ "scrypt page on the Tarsnap website". Archived from the original on 28 May 2019. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  14. ↑ Deng, Robert H. (3 August 2017). Handbook of Blockchain, Digital Finance, and Inclusion, Volume 1: Cryptocurrency, FinTech, InsurTech, and Regulation. United Kingdom: Elsevier Science. ISBN   9780128104422.
  15. ↑ "Litecoin founder Charlie Lee has sold all of his LTC". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2021-02-21. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
  16. ↑ Hacıoğlu, Ümit, ed. (2019). Blockchain economics and financial market innovation: financial innovations in the digital age. Contributions to economics. Cham: Springer. p. 213. ISBN   978-3-030-25275-5.
  17. ↑ Charlton, Alistair (2013-11-28). "Litecoin value leaps 100% in a day as market cap passes $1bn". International Business Times, UK Edition. Archived from the original on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-12-16.
  18. ↑ Cizek, Jakub. Bitcoin as a leader of crypto-currencies: A predictability study (PDF). Charles University. p. 11. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-02-01. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
  19. ↑ Murdock, Jason (2021-04-14). "How to mine dogecoin as 129 billion tokens in circulation". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 2022-07-13. Retrieved 2022-07-13.
  20. ↑ BBC (2020) "PayPal allows Bitcoin and crypto spending", October 21. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54630283 Archived 2021-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
  21. ↑ Crypto with PayPal is here Archived 2022-01-20 at the Wayback Machine , PayPal.com
  22. ↑ "Walmart denies tieup with litecoin, fake statement rattles cryptocurrency". Reuters. 2021-09-13. Archived from the original on 2022-10-15. Retrieved 2021-09-13.
  23. ↑ "MWEB Has Officially Activated". Litecoin Foundation. 2022-05-20. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2022-06-01.
  24. ↑ PAYPAL (2022) "PayPal Users Can Now Transfer, Send, and Receive Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin", June 21. https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2022-06-07-PayPal-Users-Can-Now-Transfer-Send-and-Receive-Bitcoin-Ethereum-Bitcoin-Cash-and-Litecoin Archived 2022-07-12 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ↑ Steadman, Ian (2013-05-11). "Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other cryptocurrencies". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2014-01-16. Retrieved 2014-01-19.
  26. ↑ Alec Liu (29 November 2013). "Beyond Bitcoin: A Guide to the Most Promising Cryptocurrencies". Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  27. ↑ McGleenon, Brian (24 November 2022). "Why is this crypto token rising amid crash and FTX collapse?". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  28. ↑ Silveira, Adrián; Betarte, Gustavo; Cristiá, Maximiliano; Luna, Carlos (2021-09-04). "A Formal Analysis of the Mimblewimble Cryptocurrency Protocol". Sensors. 21 (17): 5951. arXiv: 2104.00822 . Bibcode:2021Senso..21.5951S. doi: 10.3390/s21175951 . ISSN   1424-8220. PMC   8434605 . PMID   34502842.
  29. ↑ "Bitcoin's Dominance of Crypto Payments Is Starting to Erode". Time. Archived from the original on 2022-07-16. Retrieved 2022-07-16.
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