Litecoin may just possibly become a better digital currency investment in the future than Bitcoin.

Silver Bitcoin

Although Bitcoin is currently considered the leading cryptocurrency by market cap and adoption, altcoins such as Litecoin shows a lot of promise to potentially overtake Bitcoin.

In fact, Litecoin is now referred to as the ‘silver Bitcoin.’

While Litecoin’s conception was heavily influenced by Bitcoin, there are telling differences that separates the former from the latter. Let us compare the two and showcase why Litecoin could give Bitcoin a run on it for its lead.

Higher lifetime cap

Although both Bitcoin and Litecoin share a deflationary nature, the two have very significant difference in terms of lifetime cap. Bitcoin’s total amount of lifetime cap is only at 21 mln whereas Litecoin has a limit of 84 mln, which is exactly four times higher.

Faster block generation

Another advantage of Litecoin when compared to Bitcoin is its block generation speed.

Litecoin is four times faster than Bitcoin. It can generate blocks in 2.5 minutes compared to Bitcoin which will take 10 minutes to process. This will be beneficial for investment purposes because users will spend less in transaction fees compared to Bitcoin.

Simpler algorithm

Even though the two have the same proof of work concept, Litecoin uses a much simpler algorithm. Litecoin’s mining algorithm is much easier to run on GPUs thus tends to use less energy which makes it easier for miners to mine.

Scalability

Apart from the above, Litecoin also has the advantage when it comes to scalability. Litecoin is more adaptive to changes and improvements compared to Bitcoin. Its roadmap has also shown that it is currently working on creating a ‘lightning network’ which will help increase the scalability of its transactions.