What is the difference between Bitcoin and Litecoin?
In the year 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin as the best and first cryptocurrency all over the world. The code is open-source, which means anyone can modify it and use freely for other projects. Most of the cryptocurrencies have launched with the modified versions of the code, with best success levels.
Litecoin was launched in 2011 with the goal of being the silver one to the gold of Bitcoin. While writing, Litecoin has the highest cap in the market of any mining cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
Differences in mining
Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin is the cryptocurrency generated by mining. It was created in the year 2011 by the Google engineer Charles Lee. The motive behind creating it was to improve the bitcoin.
For enthusiasts and miners, Litcoin holds a major important difference to Bitcoin and that is its different proof of working algorithm. If talk about Bitcoin, it uses the algorithm of SHA-256 which comprises of the calculation that can be accelerated greatly in parallel processing. It is the characteristic which has given rise in the race in the technology of ASIC and has increased the difficulty level of Bitcoin.
However, Litecoin uses the scrypt algorithm – originally called s-crypt but pronounced as a ‘script’. This incorporates the algorithm SHA-256, but the calculation is much more serialized than the one in bitcoin. Scrypt asks for large amounts of RAM of high speed rather than the raw processing power alone. As a result, scrypt is called as a ‘memory hard problem’.
To highlight the hashing power difference while writing, the total rate of hashing of the network of bitcoin is about 20,000 Terra Hashes per second, while on the other side Litecoin is only 95,643 Mega Hashes per second. Visit now to know more about its difference.
Differences of transaction
The primary difference is that Litecoin has the power to confirm the transactions faster than the Bitcoin. The implications are as follows:
- Litecoin can handle the higher transactions volume, all thanks to its faster generation of the block. If Bitcoin tries to match this, it would need the updates in the code.
- A merchant waiting for a minimum of two confirmations would only need to wait for 5 minutes, whereas they would have to wait for 10 minutes for one confirmation with Bitcoin.
Confirmation and transaction speed are mostly touted as the moot points by the people involved in Bitcoin.
