Litecoin has been one of the good guys of the cryptocurrencies with not much bad news circulating around, just the opposite. It has recently partnered up with UFC, becoming the first ever cryptocurrency to sponsor UFC and has future plans for their project which could directly help crypto in terms of mass adoption.

Litecoin is a currency solely made for the purpose of making people use crypto as a global payment network. Much like Bitcoin, the currency focuses on transactions, unlike other networks like Ethereum etc. The question that arises is that why do we need Litecoin at all when the world had Bitcoin as a network. The Director of Litecoin, Franklyn Richards explained that the vision was to provide the world with an alternative to bitcoin with better transactions per second, cheaper transaction fees and other advancements in mining procedures. Upon inquiry on why we needed Litecoin when Bitcoin was already available, Franklyn told BlockPublisher,

As a hedge and balance to provide alternative options for users in the market and help drive competition in this space as has happened with certain technological advancements and political situations.

Also explaining the distinguishable feature of Litecoin from the rest of the currencies made exclusively for global payments he said,

It’s another option with quicker on boarding options to layer 2 network, (this will only be valuable and interesting later on)

Litecoin also changed the mining, changing the hashing algorithms of Bitcoin from SHA-256 to Scrypt. This hashing algorithm is said to make PoW easier for miners. All the power of adding blocks is not given in the hands of a handful of miners, which makes it more centralized than decentralized in the case of Bitcoin. In the case of Litecoin, the cryptographic puzzles are easier to solve because of the large circulating supply, hence the power required is lesser and the mining is easier and decentralized. Explaining why the fork changed the mining procedures, Franklyn stated,

Litecoin also uses POW its just a different hashing algorithm which means it doesn’t directly compete for miners efforts with Bitcoin. This also means Litecoin is extremely secure as it is number 1 for scrypt mining.

Further elaborating on the hashing algorithm and clarifying if team Litecoin thought that the mining procedures of Bitcoin were flawed, he said,

Mining algorithm is different from consensus model. POW is the consensus we all agree on that. the algorithm is scrypt because it means it doesn’t compete for miners with bitcoin. It’s not that bitcoin is flawed, it’s not. Litecoin is just more secure with its own.

Not only is the mining different, but Litecoin also offers better TPS than BTC with a clear difference. LTC also aims to improve their TPS in case of a network clogging incident. According to Franklyn, the network is working pretty fine with the current TPS, but the platform can be made scalable and work is being done relating to that by introducing the Lightning network on Litecoin. Explaining Litecoin’s scalability Franklyn said,

We are persuing layer 2 solutions including the Lightning network but the market will be the ones who decide if they want to use this solution and currently the layer one experience is working just fine so its not so much an issue. But yes we are prepared for when the networks get backlogged again.

The project recently has shown much growth in terms of partnerships and the introduction of layer 2 solutions and according to Franklyn, there is much much more to come.

SEE ALSO: Litecoin (LTC) – An Introduction to Lighter Bitcoin