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Litecoin is a cryptocurrency launched in 2011 as a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain with minor alteration and initially looked to address concerns that Bitcoin was becoming too centrally controlled.
Over time, Litecoin evolved into a minable coin and peer-to-peer payment system using key features from the Bitcoin network such as the Lightning Network and Segregated Witness.
Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee, a computer scientist from MIT. His initial vision was to improve scalability for digital payments so crypto would become more practical for vendors. As time passed, the engineering focus of Litecoin shifted to encompass experimental protocols intended to improve the overall latency, security, and usability of blockchain-based networks. Lee, now leading the Litecoin Foundation, promotes the blockchain and funds its development.
The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011 with LTC released the same year.
Litecoin users send and receive LTC on the blockchain by inputting the public-key information attached to each person’s digital wallet. It uses code very similar to Bitcoin’s but unlike Bitcoin’s proof of work (PoW) consensus where miners compete against each other using specialized computer equipment to be the first to discover new blocks, LTC incorporates the Scrypt PoW algorithm which makes it possible to mine the cryptocurrency with consumer-grade hardware. Another characteristic that makes Litecoin different from Bitcoin is the time it takes to confirm blocks. It takes Bitcoin nine minutes on average to produce a block, while it takes Litecoin two and a half minutes to produce a block on its network.
