View source for Litecoin

{{ infobox currency
| image_1 = Litecoin Accepted Here.png 
| image_title_1 = "Litecoin Accepted Here" logo
| image_width_1 = 130
| image_2 = Litecoin Client Overview Tab.jpg
| image_title_2 = Litecoin [[Client (computing)|client]] (overview tab)
| image_width_2 = 150
|issuing_authority = None. The Litecoin [[peer-to-peer]] network regulates and distributes through consensus in [[Network protocol|protocol]].
|date_of_introduction = 7 October 2011
|date_of_introduction_source = 
|using_countries = International
|inflation_rate = Limited release ([[Geometric series]], rate halves every 4 years reaching a final total of 84 million LTC)
|inflation_source_date = 
|inflation_method = 
| symbol = Ł
|nickname = LTC
|subunit_ratio_1 = 0.001
|subunit_name_1 = mLTC (millicoin)
|subunit_ratio_2 = 0.000001
|subunit_name_2 = μLTC (microcoin)
|subunit_ratio_3 = 0.00000001
|subunit_name_3 = Smallest unit
| plural = Litecoin, litecoins
| plural_subunit_1 = 
| plural_subunit_2 = 
|frequently_used_coins = 
|printer = 
|mint = 
}}
[[File:Litecoin Logo.jpg|thumb|Litecoin Logo]]
'''Litecoin''' ([[currency sign|sign]]: '''Ł'''; [[abbreviation|abbrv]]: '''LTC''') is a [[peer-to-peer]] [[Cryptocurrency|cryptocurrency]] and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license.<ref name="Litecoin.org, April 2013">{{cite web|title=Litecoin.org|url=http://litecoin.org|work=Litecoin.org, April 2013|publisher=Litecoin.org|accessdate=24 April 2013}}</ref>  Inspired by and similar to to [[Bitcoin]] ('''BTC'''),<ref>(April 13 2013). [http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21576149-even-if-it-crashes-bitcoin-may-make-dent-financial-world-mining-digital Mining digital gold]. [[The Economist]]. The Economist Newspaper. Retrieved April 27 2013.</ref> Litecoin creation and transfer is based on an [[open source]] encryption protocol and is not managed by any central authority.<ref name="Litecoin.org, April 2013" /><ref name="Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System">{{cite web|last=Satoshi|first=Nakamoto|title=Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System|url=http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf|publisher=Bitcoin.org|accessdate=24 April 2013|}}</ref>  Litecoin is intended to improve upon Bitcoin <ref name="Bitcoin Isn’t the Only Cryptocurrency in Town, 15th April 2013">{{cite web|last=Simonite|first=Tom|title=Bitcoin Isn’t the Only Cryptocurrency in Town|url=http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513661/bitcoin-isnt-the-only-cryptocurrency-in-town/|accessdate=24 April 2013|}}</ref> and offers three key differences.<ref name="Linux Journal, March 2012">{{cite web|last=Powers|first=Shawn|title=Cryptocurrency: Your Total Cost Is 01001010010|url=http://www.missoulapubliclibrary.org/ftp/LinuxJournal/LJ12-03.pdf|work=Linux Journal, March 2012|publisher=Linux Journal|accessdate=21 October 2012|page=29}}</ref><ref name="The Market Oracle, 17th April 2013">{{cite web|last=BATR|title=Bitcoins Risk Reward|url=http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39996.html|accessdate=24 April 2013|}}</ref> Firstly, the Litecoin network processes a block every 2.5 minutes, rather than every 10 minutes.<ref name="Litecoin.org, April 2013" />  Secondly, the Litecoin network will produce 84 million litecoins which is four times as many as currency units as will be issued by the Bitcoin network.<ref name="Litecoin.org, April 2013" />  Thirdly, Litecoin uses [[scrypt]] in its proof-of-work algorithm: a sequential memory-hard function first conceived by Colin Percival.<ref name="Stronger Key Derivation Via Sequential Memory-Hard Functions">{{cite web|last=Percival|first=Colin|title=Stronger Key Derivation Via Sequential Memory-Hard Functions|url=http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf|accessdate=24 April 2013|}}</ref><ref name="Litecoin.org, April 2013" /><ref>{{cite web|author=Dan Goodin |title=Potent DDoS attacks on Mt. Gox delay rollout of new virtual currency|url=http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/potent-ddos-attacks-on-mt-gox-delays-rollout-of-new-virtual-currency/ |publisher=Ars Technica|accessdate=27 April 2013}}</ref> Each litecoin is subdivided into 100,000,000 smaller units, defined by eight decimal places.

==Transactions==
A peer-to-peer network similar to Bitcoin's handles Litecoin's transactions, balances and issuance through [[Scrypt]], the [[proof-of-work]] scheme (Litecoins are issued when a small enough [[cryptographic hash|hash]] value is found, at which point a block is created, the process of finding these hashes and creating blocks is called mining).<ref>(21 October 2012).  [http://www.andykellett.com/discography/litecoin-miner-status/ Litecoin Miner Status]. FishGuy876's Blog. Retrieved April 27 2013.</ref><ref>(21 October 2012). [http://www.openwall.com/lists/crypt-dev/2012/09/02/1 Using scrypt for user authentication]. Retrieved April 27 2013.</ref> The issuing rate forms a [[geometric series]], and the rate halves every 4 years (every 840,000 blocks) reaching a final total of 84 million LTC. The memory intensive nature of Scrypt means that unlike with Bitcoin, Litecoin is better suited for [[GPU]] mining. [[FPGA]] and [[ASIC]] implementations are more expensive to create for Scrypt than for [[SHA-256]] as used by Bitcoin.<ref>{{cite web|last=Coventry|first=Alex|title=Nooshare|url=http://mit.edu/alex_c/www/nooshare.pdf|publisher=MIT|accessdate=21 October 2012|quote=These hash functions can be tuned to require rapid access a very large memory space, making them particularly hard to optimize to specialized massively parallel hardware.}}</ref>

Litecoins are currently traded for both [[fiat currencies]] and bitcoins, mostly on online [[Digital currency exchanger|exchanges]]. Reversible transactions (such as those with [[credit cards]]) are not normally used to buy litecoins as Litecoin transactions are irreversible, so there is the danger of [[chargebacks]].<ref>(21 October 2012). [https://blockchain.info/wallet/paypal-vs-bitcoin, Comparison of online payment methods]. Blockchain. Retrieved April 27 2013.</ref><ref name=BTC-E /> As of 28th April 2013, 1 LTC is worth approximately 4.11 [[USD]] or 0.032 BTC.<ref name=BTC-E>{{cite web|title=LTC/USD|url=https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_btc|publisher=BTC-E|accessdate=25 April 2013}}</ref><ref name=Vircurex>{{cite web|title=BTC/LTC|url=https://vircurex.com/welcome/index?base=btc&alt=ltc|publisher=Vircurex|accessdate=15 April 2013}}</ref>{{Update after|2013|4|28}} This makes Litecoin the second largest cryptocurrency by [[market cap]] with a cap of 70,000,000 [[USD]]. <ref>(15 April 2013). [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513661/bitcoin-isnt-the-only-cryptocurrency-in-town Bitcoin Isn't the Only Cryptocurrency in Town]. [[MIT Technology Review]].</ref><ref>[http://dustcoin.com/mining Cryptocoin Mining Information<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[https://btc-e.com/exchange/btc_usd BTC-E | Bitcoin Exchange, Namecoin Exchange, Litecoin Exchange, BTC Exchange<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

==History==
Litecoin was released via an [[open-source]] [[Client (computing)|client]] on [[Github]] on October 7th 2011.<ref name="Abe Search">{{cite web|title=Search Results: Litecoin|url=http://explorer.litecoin.net/|publisher=Abe Search|accessdate=20 October 2012}}</ref> The current version of this client (as of 19th April 2013) is  v0.6.3c.<ref>[https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/downloads litecoin-project: litecoinn: Download Packages]. 21st October 2012.</ref>{{Update after|2012|10|21}}

Other clients have also been released.<ref>[https://gitorious.org/~coblee/electrum/electrum-client-litecoin electrum-client-litecoin]. 21st October 2012.</ref>

More recently Litecoin has been covered in the news as a [[Bitcoin]] alternative.<ref>(April 13 2013). [http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21576149-even-if-it-crashes-bitcoin-may-make-dent-financial-world-mining-digital Mining digital gold]. [[The Economist]].</ref>

==Development==
The Litecoin Developers have a new release 0.8.1 in the works which will help to modernize and enhance the network. This major upgrade will include all enhancements made in recent [[Bitcoin]] releases.

==Criticism==
{{Criticism section|date=April 2013}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2013}}
==== Redundancy ====
Some believe that because Litecoin does not provide any features over what [[Bitcoin]] already provides, so they believe Litecoin is unlikely to match or surpass Bitcoin's value or user base.

==== Vulnerability to mining monopoly ====
Like [[Bitcoin]], Litecoin can be attacked by an entity that can match or exceed the hash rate of the network, though such a [[51% attack]] becomes more difficult to launch and maintain as the hash rate of the network grows. Some have argued that because Litecoin is designed to be inefficient on all common computers, a malicious entity need only produce a small batch of specialized hardware to overtake all the commodity mining systems combined. On the other hand, others have argued that the scrypt function simply makes it infeasible to create any specialised hardware; and that even if it were possible, specialised hardware would only strengthen the network, which happened with [[Bitcoin]] and [[ASIC|ASICs]].

==== Pump and Dump Scheme ====
Some people claim that, due to some of all of the aforementioned reasons, Litecoin is a [[pump and dump|pump and dump scheme]], rewarding those who get in sooner at the expense of those who adopt it just before the price falls.

Additionally, people often complain that the Litecoin community misrepresents it in other ways, such as portraying "faster block times" as if it makes transactions faster, and scrypt as if it is resistant to ASIC or FPGA hardware, in order to pretend Litecoin has value and inflate its value.
 
It's important to note, generally these critics do not think that blockchain currencies are pump and dump schemes [[Per_se_(terminology)#per_se|per se]];
but rather that the existing network effect of [[Bitcoin]], combined with the lack of meaningful differentiation between Litecoin and Bitcoin as well as Litecoin's adoption of a "designed to fail" proof-of-work algorithm;
that Litecoin is bound to fail in the end.
Bitcoin does not suffer from these flaws and therefore does not fall under the pump and dump scheme, according to this argument.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External Links==
* [http://litecoin.org/ Litecoin website]
* [http://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/ Litecoin wiki]
* [http://forum.litecoin.net/ Litecoin forum]
* [http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin Litecoin Reddit community]
* [http://ltc.block-explorer.com/ Litecoin block explorer (New)]
* [http://explorer.litecoin.net/ Litecoin block explorer (Original)]
* [http://ltc.block-explorer.com/charts Litecoin network charts and statistics]
* [http://www.ltc-charts.com/ Litecoin market charts]
* [https://www.litecoinpool.org/stats Litecoin network statistics]
* [https://ltc-wallet.com Online Litecoin wallet]


[[Category:Application layer protocols]]
[[Category:Electronic currencies]]
[[Category:Payment systems]]
[[Category:Peer-to-peer computing]]
[[Category:Alternative currencies]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]