Litecoin is an altcoin and a cryptocurrency that has always been present at the very top of the most powerful cryptocurrencies list, constantly holding one of top five places, with its significant market cap. In the early years of LTC, it has been referred as silver to BTC gold. For a long time, LTC has been considered as the third largest digital currency on the market, after Bitcoin and Ripple.
Litecoin was originally designed as an alternative to Bitcoin, aiming to become something "lighter" than BTC and certainly more plentiful. Its main difference to BTC is that it uses proof-of-work algorithm, to be safer and more impenetrable than the current ASIC software mining. However, there are some companies that are willing to include ASIC mining in this process.
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The total supply of Litecoin is 84 million coins on the network, while Bitcoin max supply is 21 million. It was planned to create a currency that processes blocks much faster than BTC.
Litecoin main characteristics
Before obtaining this digital currency, it's important to learn more about the main characteristics of Litecoin itself.
Litecoin was for a long time the most common instrument of speculations on the market after Bitcoin's price suffered some downfalls in previous four years. Many experts still believe that these two currencies will have the very same growth trajectory in the upcoming period, but we should keep in mind that the value of LTC is way lower than the value of BTC. Using the standard, normal computers in order to obtain Litecoin is the alternative way of gaining these coins. However, it is essential to do a good research about risks and possible losses before investing money in LTC mining. If you are comfortable with all the risks that come with gaining Litecoin, then you should choose the method that suits you the most and begin making some profits.
Buying Litecoin with cash and Bitcoin
First of all, buying Litecoin is not the same process as buying Bitcoin. However, the easiest way to obtain some Litecoins is to exchange some Bitcoins for them, which is proved to be the fastest possible way. For many traders, it is the cheapest way to buy LTC as well. Those who possess a certain amount of BTC can consider buying LTC on various exchanges on the web.
Some of the most popular choices among BTC holders are:
- Kraken
- Coinbase
- Bitpanda
Anyway, there are dozens of exchanges that offer the BTC\LTC exchange option. When it comes to exchanges that offer fiat\LTC conversion, the most common choices are Bitfinex and Kraken which provide exchanges for dollars, euros, and roubles. Which fiat currency you can convert largely depends on your home location. The investors for the United Kingdom commonly choose the services of Bittylicious and BitBargain. The investors in Australia often operate through CoinSpot.
The most popular exchanges that offer the conversion of fiat currencies into LTC are:
- Bitfinex
- Kraken
- BitBargain UK
- Bittylicious UK
Those who believe that purchasing Litecoin via fiat wire transfer by using certain exchange is an easy thing should know that this may be a complicated process for several reasons. For some period, major Bitcoin exchanges such as Coinbase and BTC China did not allow LTC transactions.
As we mentioned above, the biggest advantage of purchasing Litecoin with Bitcoin is the speed. It usually takes just a few minutes to be done, while in some cross-border wire transfers this can take several days, which always comes with some additional charges.
One of the alternative ways to obtain Litecoin is to buy BTC in a local area, avoiding the international money transactions, and then to convert that amount of BTC into LTC. This also means that you would possibly have a more agreeable price when converting it, as the LTC price grows. You will also be able to get your Bitcoins sooner than by using cross-border options.
Litecoin wallets analysis
Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges allow people to get online LTC wallets, but so far, it didn't prove as the best option for Litecoin holders. Most of the users want to have a more secure option, such as having an offline wallet and similar. What is a good thing about LTC wallets is that you can make your wallet safe just with several mouse clicks because of the encryption and the way they are designed.
The disadvantage is that there are far more Bitcoin wallets available on the market than Litecoin wallets. Many LTC holders choose to use Litecoin-Qt desktop client, but there were some cases of syncing issue reports. Other may opt for Electrum which supports Windows, Linux, and OS X, offering them a twelve-word security pass as a protection.
You should do a research to determine which LTC wallets charge cryptocurrency holders for a transaction because there is even some that charge for a plain storage. If you're not comfortable with these options, you may wish to consider using a simple Litecoin paper wallet.
