By Tom Alford Mar 29, 2018

Litecoin (LTC) – The Definitive Guide

About this guide: Our Litecoin (LTC) guide will tell you everything you need to know about the project. We’ll explain what Litecoin is, what the project does and give our opinion on its investment potential. You should know that Litecoin is commonly referred to as LTC. We always recommend you do your own research before investing in any cryptocurrency. 

What Is Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin was launched in 2011 and is one of the oldest and most established cryptocurrencies. It was created as a fork of Bitcoin and shares many similarities. In fact, it is so similar that Litecoin doesn’t even have its own white paper and LTC was created from the Bitcoin source code.

Although very similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin was created to have cheaper fees and to have faster transaction times. LTC also has its own separate blockchain.

The idea was that Bitcoin would be the ‘gold’ of cryptocurrency and would be primarily used as a store of value or used for really big purchases. Litecoin, on the other hand, would be the ‘silver’ that is used for lower value and more frequent transactions eg buying a coffee.

So what is LTC? It is a store of value and a method of exchange – it is a cryptocurrency in the truest sense of the word.

How Is LTC Used?

Litecoin has already been offered as a payment method by some online stores. As cryptocurrency becomes a more commonly accepted form of payment, it is exceptionally likely that LTC will be one of the first crypto to be accepted by new merchants.

Litecoin’s limited supply of 84 million means that as demand for the cryptocurrency increases, so will its price.

The Team

The Litecoin team is lead by figurehead Charlie Lee and they also have a team of 11 volunteers, in addition to the team members below:

• Board of Directors: Charlie Lee, Xinxi Wang & Franklyn Richards.
• Managing Director: Charlie Lee
• Operations Director: Keith Yong
• Sponsored Full-time & Part-time Developers: Adrian Gallagher & Loshan T.

Charlie Lee remains one of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency space, with many referring to him as SatoshiLite.

On the 20th December 2017, Charlie Lee announced on Reddit that he had sold all his LTC. He cited a conflict of interests, given that his comments on Twitter had such an impact on the LTC price. Mr Lee went on to state that he was “not quitting Litecoin. I will still spend all my time working on Litecoin. When Litecoin succeeds, I will still be rewarded in lots of different ways, just not directly via ownership of coins.”

Who Is SatoshiLite?

Artwork thanks to our friends at CoinTelegraph.

Charlie Lee was born in the Ivory Coast. His parents were Chinese pioneers who ventured out to Africa in the 1960’s. When Charlie was 13, he moved to the USA and ended up graduating from MIT with a Masters in Computer Science.

After leaving college Charlie grinded it out at a software engineer at Kana Communications for 3 years. He then joined Guidewire Software and took the position of senior software engineer for 4 years.

It seems that Charlie’s skills as a software engineer were recognised and in 2007 Google came calling. At Google, Mr Lee worked on projects such as YouTube mobile and the Chrome operating system. Whilst still working at Google, Charlie created LTC.

In 2013, SatoshiLite left Google to join Coinbase as the Director of Engineering and left this position in June 2017 to pursue the Litecoin project full time.

Which Crypto To Choose? LTC or Bitcoin?

The first thing to know is that LTC and Bitcoin are NOT in competition with each other. The idea is that both cryptocurrencies will exist side by side, with Litecoin being used for smaller transactions and Bitcoin for larger ones. Both cryptocurrencies are seen as a store of value as well.

The focus of Litecoin has been on:

• Cheaper transactions.
• Faster transactions.
• LTC has put a lot of effort into being adopted by merchants (an area where Bitcoin has struggled).

Litecoin can also be seen as the testing ground of new technology for Bitcoin. For example, LTC got Lightning Network, SegWit and Atomic Swaps before Bitcoin did. It seems that once an upgrade is shown to have worked on Litecoin, it is then deployed for Bitcoin.

It is actually not a choice between either LTC or Bitcoin. Instead, both cryptocurrencies should be seen as complementary. Yes, Bitcoin is the big brother, but LTC is the little brother in the Bitcoin family.

LTC is still a giant in it’s own right in the cryptocurrency space. At the time of writing it has the 5th largest cryptocurrency market cap.

How High Could it Go?

In short, nobody knows what LTC could be worth in the future or if the cryptocurrency will be mass adopted. For fun, we’ll have a look at how much Litecoin the average person would have, if everyone on the planet used LTC for everyday transactions.

The price of LTC is very much linked to the demand for it and how widely it’s adopted as a payment method. For merchants, the lowest fee they can expect to pay for credit cards to process transactions is around 1.2% of the transaction value. With LiteCoin, the lowest fee is around 0.0002 LTC, which is around 3 cents! In time we expect that online stores will start adopting Litecoin at a faster rate, as they look to enjoy the benefits of low-cost transactions. As LTC is more widely adopted, we expect its price to rise.

Should I Invest In Litecoin?

It’s entirely up to you whether you invest in Litecoin or not. We are happy to give our thoughts on it though.

Pros

• LTC is already a well established (the 5th largest cryptocurrency) and has a large following. Because of this, it may be a safer play then other less established cryptocurrencies.
• We do see the benefit in using LTC for everyday transactions. In time we believe merchant adoption will spread, as business owners look to reduce payment processing fees and get faster transactions.
• As Litecoin is the testing ground for Bitcoin, it is likely it will remain ahead of its big brother in terms of tech.
• As a transfer of value, Litecoin actually performs better than Bitcoin.
• LTC is one of the easiest cryptocurrencies to buy. You can do so through a single account.

Cons:

• If LTC is never adopted at scale, then it will have a limited use case.
• Litecoin founder Charlie Lee has sold all his Litecoins.
• There are a lot of other cryptocurrencies trying to do the same thing as Litecoin.

Image via Coinmarketcap.com

How To Buy Litecoin?

Currently, the easiest way to buy Litecoin is through Coinbase. We have put together a detailed guide to show you how to use Coinbase and buy Litecoin.

Setting Up A Litecoin Wallet

You can choose to keep your LTC on Coinbase – this really is the simplest way to store your Litecoin. We at Total Crypto believe that it is best for us to be in control of our own cryptocurrency, so we don’t have to depend on trusting third parties.

If you are looking for a FREE Litecoin wallet to take personal control over your LTC. We recommend using the official wallet.

• Head over to the official Litecoin wallet download page. Then just select the device that you want to install your LTC wallet on. For this example, we will use MAC OS X.
• You will then get a screen showing you some options. You want to download Litecoin Core.
  
• Once downloaded open the file and move Litecoin Core into your applications.
  
• You will then see the LTC wallet in your applications folder.
  
• When you try and open the application you will see that your computer will flag that it’s from an unidentified developer.
• To enable the official LTC wallet just go to system preferences and hit ‘Security & Privacy’.
  
• Once in ‘Security & Privacy’ you will see a message saying Litecoin-QT was blocked. Just hit ‘Open Anyway’ to enable.
  
• You will then get the message below. We use the data directory option.
  
• Your LTC wallet will then be downloading every transaction on the Litecoin blockchain. This will take awhile.

How To Use The Offical LTC Wallet?

• Overview screen: This just shows you your LTC balance and if there are any pending transactions.
  
• Send tab: This is where you process Litecoin payments from your wallet.
  
  • Send to – Just enter the recipient’s LTC address.
  • Label – You can make this whatever you want and it’s just for your records e.g. Macbook Pro.
  • Amount – Is obviously just the amount of LTC you want to send. Make sure you are careful with decimal points.
  • Transaction Fee: You can customise the fee you pay. The default is set at a low rate.
  • Once you have filled in the details, clicking the send button processes your transaction. Simple as that.
• How to send Litecoin to your wallet: If you have LTC on Coinbase and want to send it to your own Litecoin wallet, you want to click the ‘Receive’ tab.
  
  • Enter the amount of LTC you are going to send to your wallet.
  • The label and message can be whatever you wish.
  • Click ‘request payment’. You will then show a screen that displays your Litecoin wallet address. You just enter this into Coinbase when you withdraw your LTC and it will go to your personal Litecoin wallet.
    

How To Store Your LTC In The Safest Possible Way

Litecoin’s free dedicated wallet is a great way for you to take personal control over your LTC. However, many of you will want the best security money can buy. The most secure way to store your LTC right now is with a hardware wallet.

What makes a hardware wallet secure? Hardware wallets store your private keys and keep them safe from keyloggers and phishing attempts. In fact, with a hardware wallet you won’t even know your Litecoin private key yourself, so it’s practically impossible for it to ever be exposed to the outside world.

The two most popular hardware wallets are both compatible with LTC. We actually use both Trezor and Ledger. We are very happy to recommend both devices based on our experience with both products.

Want help to find out which hardware wallet is best for you? Take a look at our Ledger vs Trezor comparison article.

€94.80 (including European tax and free shipping)

Need help setting up your Ledger and installing the Ledger Litecoin App?

€128.26 (including European tax and shipping)

Need help setting up your Trezor? Just have a look at our step by step guide.

Resources

Below we’ve listed some key resources relevant to Litecoin.

? Best Alternative Free Wallets

• Exodus – Need help? Just check out our dedicated Exodus wallet guide.

? Best Apps To Track Your LTC Investment

• Blockfolio
  • IOS
  • Android
• Delta
  • IOS
  • Android

Useful Links

• Official site
• Block explorer service
• Message board
• Twitter
• Reddit

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About The Author

Tom Alford

Tom is a cryptocurrency expert and investor from Edinburgh, United Kingdom, with over 5 years of experience in the field. He holds an MA in diplomacy and BA in politics from the University of Nottingham, giving him a firm understanding of the social implications and political factors in cryptocurrency. He believes in long-term projects rather than any short term gains, and is a strong advocate of the future application of blockchain technology.Contact Tom: tom@totalcrypto.io