What is Lite Coin?

Litecoin (LTC) is a cryptocurrency created from a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain in 2011. It was initially designed to address the developer's concerns that Bitcoin was becoming too centrally controlled and to make it more difficult for large-scale mining firms to gain the upper hand in mining. While eventually unsuccessful in preventing enterprise miners from taking over the lion's share of Litecoin mining, the cryptocurrency has reworked itself into a minable coin and a peer-to-peer payment system.

History of Litecoin (LTC)

In 2011, Bitcoin was becoming more popular with enterprise-sized miners because of its potential price appreciation. It appeared that businesses were going to take control of mining because it was quickly becoming computationally unfeasible for individuals to participate.

To some, this looming centralization went against one of the original concepts behind the cryptocurrency, that it would remain decentralized.

Charlie Lee

In a project led by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer, Litecoin was released to the public in 2011. Like Bitcoin, Litecoin is an open-source global payment network designed to be decentralized. Lee referred to Litecoin as "the silver to Bitcoin's gold."1

This statement inferred that Litecoin was not intended to act as a replacement for Bitcoin but rather supplement it. Like silver, it would never be as valuable as gold, but it would still maintain a place as a payment method and be used more.

Top Coins of this month