Widely Available Resources:
You can find general information as well as a list of services and exchanges that support Litecoin. General information can be found at the Litecoin Wiki, while up-to-the-minute network stats can be found at Litecoin Block Explorer Charts. Meanwhile, the source code for Litecoin Core is all open and available to anyone through GitHub.
Open Source Software:
Like most members of the cryptocurrency community, Litecoin is open source software. The software project was released under the MIT/X11 license, which means users have the power to run, modify, and copy the software and to distribute, at your option, modified versions of the software. Litecoin has a transparent release process that facilitates the independent verification of binaries and their corresponding source code.
Blockchain:
The Litecoin blockchain can handle higher transaction volume than bitcoin. That’s because the Litecoin blockchain has more frequent block generation. The network supports more transactions without the need to modify the software in the future. As a result, merchants enjoy faster confirmation times while still having the ability to wait for more confirmations when selling bigger ticket items.
Wallet Encryption:
Like all good cryptocurrencies, your Litecoins can be encrypted. You can secure your wallet, view transactions, and check your account balance using the Litecoin project’s own wallet. Before you spend Litecoins, however, you’ll need to enter your password.
Mining Rewards:
Mining rewards are a crucial part of any blockchain. With the Litecoin blockchain, miners are currently awarded (as of June 2017) with 25 new Litecoins per block. That amount gets cut in half about once every 4 years (or every 840,000 blocks). The Litecoin network is scheduled to produce 84 million Litecoins, which is 4 times as many currency units as bitcoin.
Litecoin and bitcoin are two very similar cryptocurrencies. Litecoin was originally based on a bitcoin fork, so the two have a common foundation. However, there are some key differences between Litecoin and bitcoin, including:
Faster Blocks:
Litecoin processes blocks every 2.5 minutes, instead of the 10 minutes taken by bitcoin’s blockchain. There are pros and cons to this processing time: there’s a higher probability of orphaned blocks, for example. On the positive side of things, Litecoin’s faster processing time means a greater resistance to a double spending attack over the same period as bitcoin. However, total work done is also a consideration – so if the network has 10 times less computing work done per block than bitcoin, then bitcoin’s confirmation is about 10 times harder to reverse – even though the Litecoin network can add confirmation blocks at a rate four times faster.
Scrypt:
Litecoin uses Scrypt in its proof of work algorithm, which is a sequential memory-hard function requiring asymptotically more memory than an algorithm that isn’t memory-hard. That generally means you need more memory in your miners compared to blockchains that don’t use Scrypt.