Before we show you how to buy Litecoin, you should know that Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world. Litecoin is an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralized without any central authorities. Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances. It was created in 2011 by the MIT graduate and former Google employee Charlie Lee. Lee designed Litecoin based on the Bitcoin code and protocol, with some modifications that he believed addressed certain barriers to its wider adoption.
Differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin:
- Transaction speed: While litecoin requires more sophisticated technology to mine than bitcoin, blocks are actually generated up to four times faster. Litecoin also processes financial transactions a lot quicker, and can also process a higher number of them over the same time period.
- Number of coins: Both bitcoin and litecoin have a finite number of coins in circulation. Bitcoin has 21 million coins available, while litecoin has 84 million available – four times more than bitcoin.
- Market cap: Litecoin has a much smaller market cap than bitcoin, but is still one of the most traded cryptocurrencies.
- Algorithms: Miners must successfully solve hash functions in order to add new blocks of a cryptocurrency to the blockchain. Litecoin and bitcoin use different mining algorithms, with Scrypt being the hash function used for litecoin, and SHA-256 the hash function used for bitcoin.
Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency. With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.