Litecoin (LTC)

Overview

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency designed for faster block generation and lower transaction costs. Often considered a testing ground for Bitcoin-related innovations, Litecoin has implemented several features ahead of Bitcoin, though not all are intended for Bitcoin itself.

Launch Year: 2011
Origin: Fork of Bitcoin
Team: Charlie Lee

Technical Details

Distributed Ledger Technology: Blockchain
Consensus Protocol: Proof of Work (PoW)
Consensus Mechanism: Nakamoto Consensus
Hashing Algorithm: Scrypt
Block Time: 2.5 minutes
Transaction Finality: ≈ 15 minutes (after 6 confirmations, typical for exchange settlement)
Max TPS Achieved: ≈ 56 TPS
Theoretical TPS Capacity: ≈ 60 TPS
Average Transaction Fee: ≈ $0.02 (varies with network congestion)

Tokenomics

Circulating Supply: ≈ 76,391,776 LTC
Max Supply: 84,000,000 LTC
Distribution Model: Fair launch — no pre-mine or ICO. Block rewards halve every 840,000 blocks (~4 years), mirroring Bitcoin's emission schedule with higher total supply and faster block generation.
Issue Price: $0.30 (first market price in 2011)

Decentralization

High — Litecoin is open-source, permissionless, and maintained by a distributed community of developers and miners with global participation.

Security

High — Built on a proven Proof of Work system using Scrypt, Litecoin has maintained strong network integrity since launch. A temporary slowdown in 2019 after halving did not compromise security.

Energy Efficiency

Low — As a Proof of Work blockchain using the Scrypt algorithm, Litecoin also relies on energy-intensive mining. Its total energy use is estimated around 3–5 TWh per year, considerably lower than Bitcoin but still inefficient compared to Proof of Stake systems.