If you are interested in Litecoin (LTC) for holding or trading purpose, you can work on purchasing it from any cryptocurrency exchange as mining is not an advisable option for such a purpose. Additionally, mining Litecoin requires a sizeable investment and resources with the right amount of time. But even if you don’t have these resources as alternative methods of mining Litecoin are explained for beginners.

After reading this article you will know the necessary Litecoin mining hardware and software to mine Litecoin. You will understand the various ways of mining LTC including the possibility of a free Litecoin mining app which will be discussed.

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How To Mine Litecoin

Litecoin can be mined after choosing the best Litecoin mining hardware and software. You always choose considering your feasibility and Litecoin mining difficulty rate. Litecoin mining is similar to Bitcoin mining. Go through the entire Litecoin mining guide in order to be thorough with how to mine Litecoin.

Why Mine Litecoin?

In 2011 Charlie Lee, then a Google Software Engineer developed Litecoin as a cloning effort of Bitcoin for better scaling prospects. Even after eight years, it is standing tall compared to efforts by others who too tried the same.

Lee claims Litecoin as “silver to Bitcoin's gold" and the utility up to some level, in fact, justifies it as well. After touching the heights of $420 Litecoin is currently sitting at $60 due to the current bear market. It is much more affordable buying and holding LTC in comparison to Bitcoin thanks to four times faster confirmation speeds and 1/45th transaction costs.

Now let's move to the most important part- how to mine Litecoin? To begin mining, we need to start with different hardware and software requirements.

How To Choose Litecoin Mining Hardware

Instead of Bitcoin's SHA-256 function, Charlie Lee adopted the Scrypt hash algorithm. He made this decision to avoid competition with Bitcoin miners. Not just that, but Scrypt is also a faster and easier algorithm. In comparison to SHA-256, Scrypt is any day better. Note that Scrypt can mine Litecoin and Bitcoin together. Initial claims of Lee couldn't materialize however where he tried to create a possibility of mining Litecoin with the CPU of a computer.

Today due to the increasing mining difficulty and competition one requires an application-specific integrated circuit (ASICs) to run SHA-256. Due to the high mining costs moving from (CPU too) GPU to ASIC it was the only choice for Scrypt users as well.

Bitmain's Antminer L3+ is one of the modern Litecoin mining hardware, but its limited availability makes it a very scarce asset to own. It comes with a hash rate of 504mh/s and consumes up to 800W of power. The best thing about using this hardware is that it is easy to set-up. All you need to do is connect it to the PSU and your PC and you are all set to mine. Also, it is slightly more compact than the other lighter and miners. Down the line, Innosilicon with A4+ LTCMaster did some good but again costs associated are considerably high. However, the hardware is capable of delivering up to hash rate is 550MH/s at 750W. The prospective miners can also give dedicated Litecoin mining rigs a try. Some hardware like 1482 75 Graphic mines and workplace storage mining rigs provide a considerably high mining speed.

How To Choose Litecoin Mining Software

After the hardware requirements, checking with the software needs for Litecoin mining is the next important step. If you go with the ASIC route, then most of the Litecoin mining rigs come with preinstalled Litecoin Mining software. In case if they don't, you should be considering options like Cgminer or CUDAminer. Let’s dig the mining software bit more:

#1 Easyminer

If you want to start Litecoin mining with an easy to use UI with the least entry fee, then Easy miner can be the best choice for you. It comes with an inbuilt wallet and Litecoin mining online user support facility. This well-known litecoin mining software not only provides you with an easy to use control panel but it also offers real-time statistics as well. With the help of this litecoin mining software, you can easily check the shares, hash rates, and other important information at any time you want.

#2 GUIMiner Scrypt

Designed for windows it is the best offering for beginners. It is tailored for Scrypt mining- the one over which LTC was fabricated initially. This particular software was developed keeping the need of the beginners in mind. The software is aimed to make the process of cryptocurrency mining more easy and simple for beginners. Also, the software has an easy to use UI. This is to ensure that the users don’t find it difficult to handle.

#3 CPUminer

It’s a CPU exclusive miner and offers support on Windows, Linux, and Mac. So if you are looking for a decent mining software for your operating system, you can surely consider opting for this one. Although this software is more relatable and easier to understand for pro miners, for beginners, it may create operating issues. The software has been updated quite a few times since the time of its release. The hashing speed upgrade has enabled the users to perform the same hashing task at double the speed. Well, this is what makes this software better than the rest.

There is a Litecoin mining android app like Pocket miner claiming real LTC rewards, but we do not recommend miners going this way. There are free Litecoin mining platforms available like ‘Faucets' or ‘Drops' but they are not free as they use your device resources.

Wallets

After mining, you need a secured wallet where you can store your mined Litecoin. If you go to Litecoin's website, then you will find five different options named Hardware, Mobile, Web, Desktop, and Lightning. Depending on your likes and wants you can choose one for you. For mobile Jaxx and Coinbase are popular options whereas for desktop exodus and Litecoin core are the favorable ones.

We recommend cold wallets like Trezor and Nano Ledger S to ensure maximum security. They are costly, but when it comes to storing large amounts (especially for miners), they are entirely worth.

Note: Avoid using exchange wallets as in case of any theft or cyber-attack you won't be able to secure your coins.

Litecoin Mining Profitability in 2020

The Litecoin Mining Profitability depends on a lot of factors like hashrate, power costs per unit, pool charges (if any), the cost of your equipment (if you are a solo miner) etc. and most importantly the cost of LTC at present.

By the time (19/3/19) this piece of content is being written a miner with a setup installed and with a hash rate of 1230000.00 can get 1.97 LTC monthly against the power cost of $108 on the current level of block difficulty. This roughly translates into a Litecoin Mining Profitability of around $11 every month.

Mining alone is a lucrative option as the winner takes it all, but it requires sizeable investments as well which has to be borne by the miner only. People with less to no investment capability given here try their hands in Litecoin mining pools. In this mode, the resources combine a benefit successive block generation. The rewards are distributed through either a proportional system or pay per share basis.

Overall with the halving of Litecoin to occur in August 2020, mining Litecoin seems to be an interesting choice just before the mining rewards are reduced. At the end of the day, you need to consider the demand and supply of Litecoin, and how it plays off being a LTC miner.

FAQs on Litecoin Mining

How many Litecoins are left?

Total number of Litecoins in circulation: 62,899,850, Total Litecoins left to mine: 21,100,150

2. How long does it take to mine 1 Litecoin?

The approximate block generation time to mine 1 Litecoin is 2.5 minutes, which is around 4X faster than that of Bitcoin.

3. What is the risk of ASIC mining?

In the future, the manufacturers might realize that it does not make economic sense to sell their ASIC, and instead of that they can store the miners in a warehouse and earn full revenue. The rapid growth of ASICs pushed the miners running GPUs or CPUs, raising the financial barrier to entry. Eventually, they reach a certain point where the cost of electricity is more than the miner's income.

4. Can you mine Litecoin on your laptop?

As it requires a huge mining pool to attain proper hashrate, mining Litecoin on your laptop may prove futile. Moreover, Litecoin can be mined by ASIC. If you try it might overheat your laptop and might get damaged.

5. Can Litecoin be mined?

Yes, Litecoin can be mined using the Proof of Work (PoW) mining technique.

6. What is the best Litecoin miner?

ASICs are considered to be the best Litecoin miner.

7. How do I start mining Litecoin?

You can refer to this article, and you can understand the processes involved in mining Litecoin. You need to choose the most preferred Litecoin mining software and hardware and choose based on the mining difficulty.

8. How many Litecoins can you mine in a day?

This depends on Litecoin mining difficulty. For example, 1000K can mine 0.18 LTC per day, hence a set of mining machines can mine 0.18*3=0.54 LTC.

9. Is Litecoin easier to mine than Bitcoin?

Litecoin mining is a bit easier than Bitcoin mining, as you need more powerful machines to mine Bitcoin. It is expensive, too.

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