Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer. It is one of the oldest and most established cryptocurrencies in circulation today, second only to Bitcoin.
Litecoin works similarly to Bitcoin, using a decentralized network to maintain its ledger of transactions known as the blockchain. Transactions occur directly between users without an intermediary or third party involved. All Litecoin transactions are secured by cryptography and are verified on the blockchain before being processed.
Unlike other digital currencies like Ethereum, Litecoin does not have smart contract capabilities. Instead it focuses on faster transaction confirmations and lower costs for everyday payments such as buying goods online or sending money overseas via remittance services.
The main advantage of using Litecoin over other digital currencies is that it offers significantly faster transaction times than Bitcoin with four times more capacity at any given time due to its block size limit being 4x larger than Bitcoin’s 1MB blocksize limit (8MB). The result is that processing times can be up to 2 minutes compared to 10 minutes for Bitcoin transactions allowing users to move funds quickly when needed. Additionally, fees are typically much lower when using Litecoin making it ideal for smaller purchases or international payments where speed matters more than cost savings from low fees such as large transfers between wallets or exchanges.
Compared with other popular digital currencies such as Ethereum and Ripple which focus primarily on enterprise applications like trading platforms and banking infrastructure solutions respectively, Litecoins primary use case is still retail payments but adoption among businesses has been growing steadily since 2019 due largely in part due the relative stability of its price compared with some other cryptocurrencies plus the additional benefits associated with faster transaction speeds mentioned above .
