In this week's Coin Spotlight, I will take a closer look at Litecoin and explore what makes it different from Bitcoin. Litecoin might not look like a very interesting coin on the surface, but it has consistently remained in the top 10 on coinmarketcap for years now.

Check out the article below to find out more about Bitcoin's smaller brother, Litecoin!

Source: Image created by myself using Gimp; Litecoin logo from Wikimedia

Basic Overview

The first version of Litecoin was released in 2011 by Charlie Lee on Github. Contrary to popular belief, Litecoin was not the first fork of Bitcoin, that honor is reserved for Namecoin. Litecoin has no other stated goals than being an open-source decentralized currency.

Litecoin is very similar to Bitcoin in many ways, only a few key differences distinguish Litecoin from Bitcoin. Contrary to the Bitcoin network, the Litecoin network aims to produce new blocks every 2.5 minutes (every 10 minutes for Bitcoin).

Whereas Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 mining algorithm, Litecoin uses Scrypt thus making it more ASIC resistant. The total number of Litecoin that can ever be created is fixed on 84 million, exactly 4 times more than the total number of Bitcoin's maximum supply of 21 million.

Due to the many similarities between Litecoin and Bitcoin it's often used to implement new features that were initially developed for Bitcoin. Segregated Witness (Segwit) is a perfect example of that, the Litecoin network managed to reach consensus for Segwit, way before Bitcoin ever did. The first payment over Lightning Network was also broadcasted in the Litecoin Network. I remember Hive account@marketingmonk saying that Litecoin could become the perfect testnet for Bitcoin and I agree with that statement.

Source: User EivindPedersen on Pixabay

Why use Litecoin?

I've always preferred using Litecoin over Bitcoin whenever it was possible, due to transactions getting confirmed a lot faster. Litecoin is also supported by most of the big exchanges, so it's usually no problem at all to buy Litecoin directly with fiat currency. In terms of its use as means of payment, some retailers have also started accepting it alongside with Bitcoin.

Litecoin's lower price could also remove a psychological barrier for some new investors to get into cryptocurrency. It works similar to Bitcoin, but you can easily buy a whole Litecoin, while most people cannot afford a whole Bitcoin.

In terms of blockchain activity, Litecoin is actually doing pretty well, with an average of around 31k transactions per 24 hours. Making it the 7th most active blockchain, right before Bitcoin Cash.

Litecoin Roadmap

There is still no official roadmap for 2018, because they are still working on 2017's roadmap. [source]

I'm personally really looking forward to Litecoin implementing some form of confidential transactions. This is mentioned in their 2017 roadmap as one of the possible future features of Litecoin. I'm also wondering if they will end up getting Schnorr Signatures implemented before Bitcoin does.

It's already possible to set-up your own Lightning Network node on the Litecoin mainnet, but there are still some limitations to it. [source + guides in comments].

Source: Coinmarketcap

My Personal Thoughts on Litecoin

While Litecoin might not be one of the most innovative altcoins around, it's still easily one of my favorite coins for day-to-day use. Development seems to go forward at a reasonable pace, but it can be hard to find the actual progress-status of announced features.

Overall my experience with sending Litecoin transactions is a lot more pleasant, compared to sending Bitcoin transactions. Litecoin literally saved me a couple of times when Bitcoin transaction fees were too high and on top of that confirmations were also slow. Once we start seeing atomic swaps becoming mainstream, this would all be a thing of the past of course.

I don't like to make price predictions in general, so I won't make one for Litecoin. The only thing I will say from an investor point of view is that Litecoin has a lot of potential. The market seems to react positively whenever an important milestone is hit, as we have seen with the activation of segwit. Looking at the Litecoin roadmap, there are some interesting milestones ahead, which could signal another upswing once they're ready for launch.