What Is Litecoin, and How Does It Work?
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By GREG MCFARLANE
Updated Jun 25, 2019
There are 180 internationally recognized currencies in circulation, ranging from the Samoan tala to the Burmese kyat. Just like with regular currency, there are multiple cryptocurrencies too. Because it was the first, bitcoin gets all the publicity, but it competes against dozens of aspiring alternatives – one of which is litecoin.
Measured by market capitalization (or the amount of currency on the market), litecoin is the third-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin and XRP. Litecoin, like its contemporaries, functions in one sense as an online payment system. Like PayPal or a bank’s online network, users can use it to transfer currency to one another. But instead of using U.S. dollars, litecoin conducts transactions in units of litecoin. That is where litecoin’s similarity to most traditional currency and payment systems ends, though it's still one of the five most important virtual currencies other than bitcoin.
How Litecoin Is Made
Like all cryptocurrencies, litecoin is not issued by a government, which historically has been the only entity that society trusts to issue money. Instead, being regulated by a Federal Reserve and coming off a press at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, litecoins are created by the elaborate procedure called mining, which consists of processing a list of litecoin transactions. Unlike traditional currencies, the supply of litecoins is fixed. There will ultimately be only 84 million litecoins in circulation and not one more. Every 2.5 minutes (as opposed to 10 minutes for bitcoin), the litecoin network generates a what is called a block – a ledger entry of recent litecoin transactions throughout the world. And here is where litecoin’s inherent value derives.
The block is verified by mining software and made visible to any “miner” who wants to see it. Once a miner verifies it, the next block enters the chain, which is a record of every litecoin transaction ever made.
Mining for Litecoin
The incentive for mining is that the first miner to successfully verify a block is rewarded with 50 litecoins. The number of litecoins awarded for such a task reduces with time. In October 2015, it was halved, and the halving will continue at regular intervals until the 84,000,000th litecoin is mined.
But could one unscrupulous miner change the block, enabling the same litecoins to be spent twice? No. The scam would be detected immediately by some other miner, anonymous to the first. The only way to truly game the system would be to get a majority of miners to agree to process the false transaction, which is practically impossible.
Mining cryptocurrency at a rate worthwhile to the miners requires ungodly processing power, courtesy of specialized hardware. To mine most cryptocurrencies, the central processing unit in your Dell Inspiron isn’t anywhere near fast enough to complete the task. Which brings us to another point of differentiation for litecoins; they can be mined with ordinary off-the-shelf computers more so than other cryptocurrencies can. Although the greater a machine’s capacity for mining, the better the chance it’ll earn something of value for a miner.
What Is Litecoin Worth?
Any currency – even the U.S. dollar or gold bullion – is only as valuable as society thinks it is. If the Federal Reserve started circulating too many banknotes, the value of the dollar would plummet in short order. This phenomenon transcends currency. Any good or service becomes less valuable the more readily and cheaply available it is. The creators of litecoin understood from the start that it would be difficult for a new currency to develop a reputation in the marketplace. But by restricting the number of litecoins in circulation, the founders could at least allay people’s fears of overproduction.
There are advantages inherent to litecoin over bitcoin. Litecoin can handle more transactions, given the shorter block generation time. Litecoin also has a barely perceptible transaction fee. It costs 1/1000 of a litecoin to process a transaction, regardless of its size. Contrast that with PayPal’s 3% fee.
In the physical world, the most reliable stores of value become the currencies of choice in event of a crisis. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Zimbabwe became synonymous with hyperinflation. When inflation reached 89.7 sextillion percent (give or take a few points) and rendered the Zimbabwean dollar worthless, that wiped out the fortunes of many people unfortunate enough to have held liquid assets. People had no choice but to use something more stable – primarily the U.S. dollar and South African rand – for daily commerce. Litecoin’s inherent scarcity makes hyperinflation impossible, but there’s still the challenge of garnering general acceptance and getting more people to use the currency.
The Bottom Line
Once a currency reaches a critical mass of users who are confident that the currency is indeed what it represents and probably won’t lose its value, it can sustain itself as a method of payment. Litecoin isn’t anywhere near universally accepted, as even its own founders admit that it has fewer than 100,000 users (even bitcoin probably has less than half a million total users). But as cryptocurrencies become more readily accepted and their values stabilize, one or two of them – possibly including litecoin – will emerge as the standard currencies of the digital realm.
bitcoin scam As more people join the cryptocoin rush, your choice could get more difficult to mine because more expensive hardware will be required to discover coins. You will be forced to either invest heavily if you want to stay mining that coin, or you will want to take your earnings and switch to an easier cryptocoin. Understanding the top 3 bitcoin mining methods is probably where you need to begin; this article focuses on mining 'scrypt' coins.tether addon генераторы bitcoin торрент bitcoin rates bitcoin bitcoin easy
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This is great for miners with less money. However, in the future, it might be possible that ASIC hardware will be used to mine Litecoin. So, when it does, it means that those who can afford expensive equipment will have more chance of receiving Litecoin mining rewards.tether android Why the need for bitcoin in the first place, if there are already so many traditional means of making payments? A key element of bitcoin is its decentralized status, meaning that it is not controlled or regulated by any central authority. This immediately distinguishes it from fiat currencies. Bitcoin payments are processed through a private network of computers linked through a shared ledger. Each transaction is simultaneously recorded in a 'blockchain' on each computer that updates and informs all accounts. The blockchain serves as a distributed ledger and obviates the need for any central authority to maintain such records.bitcoin матрица дешевеет bitcoin bitcoin вывести 