People have often described litecoin as silver to bitcoin's gold.It is the third largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin by market cap, with Ripple sitting in second place.Litecoin was developed as a bitcoin alternative to address some of that cryptocurrency's perceived shortcomings.It was designed to be ‘lightweight’ and more abundant than bitcoin.In addition, it uses scrypt as its proof-of-work algorithm, which was aimed to make it impervious to ASIC mining, although several companies say they are planning to launch scrypt ASIC miners in the near future.A total of 84 million litecoins can be produced on the network (compared with 21 million BTC), which was designed to process blocks faster than bitcoin.If you would like to know a bit more about litecoin, then read this more detailed introduction on how to get started.Some points of note before you buy litecoin: If you are aware of the risks, if you’ve done a lot of research and you are still willing to enter the litecoin market, there are a number of potential pitfalls and issues that need to be addressed.

Buying litecoins is not as straightforward as buying bitcoins, but this is hardly surprising given the lesser-developed litecoin infrastructure.One of the easiest ways of buying litecoins is to simply purchase them with bitcoins – this approach also happens to be the fastest, and for most users it will be the cheapest option.Anyone with a stash of bitcoins can easily use them to purchase litecoins on a number of exchanges: At present, one of the biggest issues facing litecoin is the lack of exchanges willing to deal in it.bitcoin core download blockchainThere are roughly two dozen litecoin exchanges, but most of them only allow BTC/LTC conversions, making the buying process cumbersome.litecoin uk priceBTC-E, Bitfinex, Crypto-Trade and Kraken sell litecoins for euros, dollars and roubles, but availability depends on your location.litecoin blockchain data

For example, UK investors can buy litecoins directly from Bittylicious and BitBargain with a domestic banking transfer, but this is not the case in most countries.Australians can convert to and from AUD at CoinSpot.You can buy litecoins for fiat on these exchanges: You may think the most straightforward way to purchase would be to buy litecoin via fiat wire transfer using an exchange, but this can be a tedious process for a number of reasons.Some major bitcoin exchanges like BTC China and Coinbase do not handle litecoin transactions at present.litecoin linux installSpeed is the most obvious advantage of using bitcoin to buy litecoin.bitcoin asic forumIn theory, it should take just minutes, whereas international wire transfers can take days to clear and potentially incur additional costs.bitcoin dogecoin litecoin wallet

The limited number of litecoin exchanges means that the vast majority of potential investors have to rely on international transfers.An alternative is to buy bitcoin locally, forgoing the hassle of wiring money abroad, and converting it into litecoin.The upside is that you will get your bitcoin sooner and possibly get a better price when you convert it, provided litecoin's value keeps going up.You are likely to pay more for bitcoin if you are limited to the local market.A number of exchanges offer online litecoin wallets, but they are hardly elegant solutions.Many users will want something more secure, like cold offline wallets.Luckily, litecoin features built-in encryption that you can use to protect your wallet in just a few clicks.That said, the choice of litecoin wallets is rather limited compared to those available for bitcoin.Many users choose to use the official Litecoin-Qt desktop client, but it has its fair share of foibles, including reported syncing issues.Electrum also has an offering (OS X/Linux/Windows) using a 12-word security passphrase (or 'seed') to protect your account.

A few online wallets charge users for transactions and even plain storage, so be sure to read the fine print.For longer-term cold storage, you may want to setup a litecoin paper wallet.It is also possible to get credit card-quality ‘paper wallet’ cards from Crypto Coin Wallet Cards, while a few smaller companies are already selling physical litecoins or coin holograms.You can keep up to date with the latest litecoin news here.Litecoin network data can be found here.Exchange Bitcoin to Litecoin and vice versa On this page you can find all the Bitcoin Exchanges and Trading Platforms which allow the exchange from and to Litecoin.High trading volume Great support Established company High fees Verification process is a bit demanding Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Cex.io Review No identity verification required Excellent user experience Great support Bitcoin-only deposits High leverage interest fees Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Whaleclub.co Review Support for numerous altcoins Fast deposits and withdrawals Competitive fees Weak liquidity for some of the coins No mobile apps Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Livecoin.net Review Security is top priority Fairly easy to navigate Automated features Verification process takes forever Customer Service issues not being resolved on time Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review New Technology Demo Mode Affiliate Program High trading volume Getting verified needs a lot of information Fees are high They have API Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Safe and decentralized trading Arbitrators 2-out-of-3 multisig security in trades Wide selection of FIAT and Crypto Currencies They need more aggressive advertising More active development They need to team up with other companies High fees Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Bitsquare.io Review Low fees Excellent liquidity in EUR markets Margin trading supported Weak support for mobile platforms Often has uptime problems when market gets hot Volume lags a bit in BTC/USD Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Superb liquidity, often the best in the world Many advanced trading options Low fees Sometimes foreign traders have problems with verification Chinese Exchange (PBoC) Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Many altcoins to trade in Margin trading in altcoins Good liquidity No fiat currency trading Slow Website Poor support Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review High USD liquidity Low fees Full package of order types, margin trading and lending market Hack has been solved professionally and innovative Not a transparent company Reputation loss due to hack Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Good liquidity Competitive fees International market Owned by Coinbase which is known for lack of privacy Support could be way better Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Numerous deposit options, including PayPal Multiple cryptocurrencies Trustworthy and reliable Low liquidity No live chat support Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Cryptonit.net Review No fees for Chinese traders Super-high liquidity 24/7 phone support Minimal information in English Possibly faking trading volume Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Competitive feesFree deposits Free deposits Great support Low liquidity Doesn't support mobile devices Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Good liquidity Fast withdrawals MetaTrader 4 allows advanced trading Hasn't provided a proof of reserve Not the best choice for storing BTC Deposit Fees: Withdrawal Fees: Trading Fees: Review Best Litecoin / Bitcoin Exchange ( BTC / LTC ) Litecoin (LTC) is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project inspired by and technically nearly identical to Bitcoin (BTC).

Who Created Litecoin Litecoin was released through an open-source client by Charlie Lee on October 7th, 2011 on GitHub.Charlie Lee is a former employee of Google.It presented a fork of the popular Bitcoin Core blockchain, and its main difference is that it has a reduced blockchain generation period of 2.5 minutes.It is also characterized by increased number of coins to the maximum, a different hashing algorithm (using the script in the place of SHA-256), and a GUI that is slightly modified.Encryption provides security to the network and empowers the participants to control their personal account activities.Litecoin has high-speed confirmation of transactions and enhances the efficiency of storage than other encryption-based currencies.Litecoin perfectly complements the Bitcoin given its liquidity, trade volume and substantial support from the company.Litecoin is the 4th largest cryptocurrency when it comes to market capitalization after the Bitcoin, Ripple, and Etherium.The aggregate Litecoin value experienced significant growth in the month of November 2013 which comprised of 100 percent leap within 24 hours.

The currency recorded a one billion US dollar market cap in the month of November 2013.The network scaling implementations allowed the Litecoin to surge approximately $10 price level./litecoin-spikes-200m-market-capitalization/ Why Was the Litecoin Created The Litecoin was created because of its enhanced inherent efficiency.The Litecoin blockchain can handle the higher volumes of transactions in comparison to its counterpart – Bitcoin.The system can support higher transaction volumes with no need to change the software in the future due to its high efficiency in block generation.Traders get timely confirmations as a result of this technology.How Does the Litecoin Work?The Litecoin operates in an almost identical way like Bitcoin.As a miner, you will get an award of 25 new Litecoins on each block.This amount is halved approximately every four years (every 840,000 blocks).Therefore, the Litecoin ecosystem is scheduled to generate 84m Litecoins which is four times the number of coins in the Bitcoin currency.