My crypto learning journey #11 – Litecoin (LTC)
Founded in October 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, #Litecoin was designed as a lighter, faster alternative to Bitcoin. It is also often dubbed "digital silver" to Bitcoin’s gold and as a hard fork from Bitcoin, it's another coin that runs on Proof-of-Work (PoW).
Learning about LTC taught me how blockchain has evolved over the years and and open-source tech like this can now can be used for real-world payments with very low fees.
✅ As of mid‑2025, circulating supply is ~76.1 million LTC, which is around 91% of the 84 million max cap.
✅ Litecoin uses Scrypt mining, producing blocks every ~2.5 minutes (four × faster than Bitcoin), which lowers fees and increases confirmation speed.
✅ Use cases include everyday payments, low-fee remittances, and testing ground for new upgrades. Litecoin helped pioneer SegWit in 2017 and the Lightning Network for instant payments; in 2022, it activated MimbleWimble (MWEB) optional privacy features.
Analogy: Litecoin is like a light-speed courier service providing fast, low-cost deliveries (payments) with optional private shipping (MWEB), making digital cash usable and practical.