All of which to say, though investing in Litecoin does offer some upsides — the currency has high liquidity, for one, and a full decade’s worth of staying power, for another — it’s not without some risks. To store crypto securely, you need to use a cryptocurrency wallet, a software program for managing the assets. But even if you have software you trust, you must remember and secure a password or key that only you know. This has been an issue with crypto, as people who forget their passwords essentially lose the assets.

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Litecoin transactions are typically confirmed in just minutes, and transaction fees are nearly negligible. This makes it an attractive alternative to Bitcoin in developing countries, where transaction fees may be the deciding factor on which cryptocurrency to support. Most cryptocurrencies can be purchased on cryptocurrency exchanges. Several exchanges can conduct https://www.tokenexus.com/mtl/ transactions within the United States; many more are outside the U.S. It’s important to note that exchanges within the U.S. are monitored and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure that the best interests of investors and traders are upheld. With that in mind, if you live in the U.S., your choices are limited to exchanges within the U.S.

Differences from Bitcoin

The main difference between Litecoin and Bitcoin is that Litecoin uses a mining algorithm called scrypt, to enable faster transaction times. However, because Litecoin uses scrypt (as opposed to Bitcoin’s SHA-256) as a proof-of-work algorithm, mining hardware such as ASIC miners or a GPU mining rig requires significantly more processing power. If you’re new to the cryptocurrency market, you might want to start your investing career with Gemini. Gemini is a straightforward broker that focuses on providing investors with a simple trading platform they can use to buy and sell some of the most popular digital currencies in just a few clicks. Gemini’s platform gives you 24/7 access to your coins, and you can track how your investment is changing over time with a glance. In addition to its desktop platform, Gemini also offers comprehensive mobile trading and more advanced tools for users who prefer to have access to expert-level charting and analysis tools.

What Is Litecoin (LTC)?

Get updates on development, announcements and exclusive Litecoin news. In 2017, Litecoin creator Charles Lee divested himself of most of his Litecoin holdings, citing a “conflict of interest,” and Lee’s action caused some loss of faith What is Litecoin in the crypto. To help control Litecoin’s supply, Litecoin halves just like Bitcoin. To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Litecoin. As of August 2023, there are just under 10.5 million Litecoins left to mine.

Spreads are represented in the price of an asset, so these fees can be sneaky. For example, an exchange that charges a 1% spread will charge you an extra $50 for every $5,000 invested on the platform. Luckily, Interactive Brokers is one of the few platforms that doesn’t charge a spread, so you won’t have to put up with any hidden fees. Our guide will teach you how to buy Litecoin, how to decide when to sell your coins and a few of our favorite platforms that currently support Litecoin trading.

• Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm does not require a lot of random access memory (RAM) as an impediment to parallel processing, whereas Scrypt does.
• The price topped out at around $350 at the end of 2017 and the range-bound process seems to be playing out again.
• Which is better depends on your interests, goals, and intended uses.
• Halving reduces the number of Litecoins awarded by one-half, which helps to slow down the creation of new coins.
• Although advertised as accommodating instantaneous transactions, both the Bitcoin and Litecoin networks require time for those transactions to be confirmed by network participants.

MimbleWimble is an upgrade enabling users to achieve much-needed privacy while transacting on the network. The MimbleWimble upgrade was first proposed in November 2019 through a Litecoin Improvement Proposal. At the time, the Litecoin developers aimed to further focus on improving anonymity between senders and receivers. As of January 2021, Litecoin is one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, and more than 2,000 merchants and stores now accept LTC across the globe. As we previously touched on, Litecoin was founded by Charlie Lee, an early cryptocurrency adopter and a name held in high regard in the cryptocurrency industry. IThe comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes online.

Bitcoin leads the crypto-verse in terms of market cap, and therefore has a much greater market capitalization than Litecoin. As of October 25, 2021, the total value of all bitcoins in circulation was around $1.1 trillion, while the market capitalization of Litecoin was about $13.42 billion. Before you invest in Litecoin, learn how to buy Litecoin and read up on cryptocurrency wallets. Speak with a financial advisor about how much you could realistically invest in cryptocurrency based on your unique financial goals. The fact that Litecoin can hold its own weight when it comes to having a legitimate use case says a lot, especially in a cryptocurrency world with over 700+ alt-coins with dubious purposes. Litecoin also uses the Scrypt hashing algorithm that utilizes much less processing power than the Bitcoin SHA-256 hashing algorithm.

• While it has greater name-recognition than most cryptocurrencies, its market cap of near $10 billion is far less than the biggest players and individual coins are worth much less too.
• Bitcoin leads the crypto-verse in terms of market cap, and therefore has a much greater market capitalization than Litecoin.
• This optimistic stance is exerting significant pressure on short sellers, who risk substantial losses if the price continues to climb.
• Bitcoin has a slow transaction processing speed of roughly five transactions per second.
• Over time, though, ASIC-based miners have become more scrypt-capable and typically generate more hashes.

Some Exchanges Delist LTC After MimbleWimble Upgrade

While you might not see Litecoin (LTC) in headlines nearly as often as Bitcoin (BTC), it’s still one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. When covering investment and personal finance stories, we aim to inform our readers rather than recommend specific financial product or asset classes. Litecoin is an open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license.