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Litecoin is a peer-to-peer decentralized digital currency (cryptocurrency) which can be used to make quick transactions worldwide, with almost no fees.
Litecoin is one of the most established and stable cryptocurrencies in terms of transaction volumes and liquidity, and is commonly used as a means of exchange. Yes, it's real currency!
Litecoin is an open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. This gives you the power to run, modify and copy the software, and to distribute your own modified copies of the software.
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world. No board, no central bank, no CEO. A truly global payment network that doesn’t rely on any central authorities.
The Litecoin network has run for 10 years without any downtime! Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances. For tips and ways to keep your Litecoin safe, click here.
Litecoin enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world using peer-to-peer technology without a central authority.
The management and processing of these transactions is carried out collectively by the decentralized Litecoin network. If you'd like to help support the network, you can do so by running Litecoin Core - the most popular full node Client.
To run Litecoin Core, please follow the instructions below! (The Litecoin Network thanks you!)
To learn more about Litecoin, take a look at our FAQs:
On 9th October, 2011, Charlie Lee (@coblee) announced the launch of Litecoin - a new decentralized cryptocurrency - on bitcointalk.org. The genesis block was mined three days later and Litecoin (LTC) entered the world!
You can view the source code here: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin.
A blockchain is a digital ledger (read: list of records). The ledger is made up of a string of 'blocks' that are linked together - in a chain - using cryptography. Hence, 'blockchain' - a chain made up of blocks.
The short answer is: no one and everyone! Litecoin is decentralized - meaning there’s no CEO, no board. The beauty of Litecoin is that anyone can contribute to its adoption, development, growth and success. The Litecoin Foundation was created with this in-mind - to be a community run organization whose volunteers can contribute to the digital currency, Litecoin ($LTC).
Unlike many modern cryptocurrencies, Litecoin was designed (like its big brother, Bitcoin) to be fair, decentralized and to provide ultimate utility to users. To this day, and ever since its creation in 2011, Litecoin was designed to only ever have:
The Litecoin network - and the miners that support it - bring Litecoin(s) into the world every 2.5 minutes. And will do so until the final Litecoin is mined in ~2142.
In order to be considered a successful and valid transfer, every Litecoin transaction must be added to the Litecoin blockchain - the official public ledger of all completed transactions. Miners get financially rewarded for processing these transactions, and thus supporting the Litecoin network. With every block (a collection of transactions) added to the blockchain comes a bounty called a 'block reward,' as well as all fees sent with the transactions that were confirmed and included in the block.
The average Litecoin transaction fee is less than a penny!
There are a variety of third-party service providers that offer interest on Litecoin and allow you to take loans out against your Litecoin. It's important to note that this typically requires using centralized-third party services, bringing additional risk.
Proof-of-Work is a decentralized consensus mechanism. The Litecoin network essentially requires members to contribute computing power to solve arbitrary mathematical puzzles and prevent anyone from gaining control or manipulating the system. Every transaction that occurs is validated before it gets added to the Litecoin blockchain. Each block then gets validated by the miners, who get rewarded Litecoin (LTC) as they have put in the “work”. Hence, this process being called 'Proof-of-Work'.