So here’s a question for you, are Bitcoin and Litecoin the same?

An interesting concept but both Bitcoin and Litecoin, superficially share a lot of the same features and ideas.

With state fiat currencies like the US dollar and the Euro depending on political and legitimate structures for esteem and authenticity, computerised monetary standards depend on the cryptographic trustworthiness of the system itself.

Even so, both of these cryptocurrencies have vastly different outlooks and there are still some significant differences between the two protocols.

Supply

One of the big differences between the two cryptocurrencies is the the supply of them. There is a big contrast in the overall volume of coins that they can both deliver to the public.

With Litecoin, the system can oblige up to 84 million coins but when it comes to Bitcoin, the system will never be able to supply more than 21 million coins. This huge difference is just one piece of evidence that the two are not the same.

Market Cap

In terms of market cap, the two digital assets have huge differences. In late 2018, Bitcoin’s market cap was around $109 billion. Whether this is a high or low figure depends on how you see it, on your verifiable viewpoint.

In mid-2010, the Bitcoin market cap was around $40,000 which if you think about it, it is a MASSIVE difference to what the market cap is sitting at today. So even though, Bitcoin is still the most profitable player in the crypto space, there are others such Ripple, Ethereum and of course, Litecoin that are making some ground.

Speed

On both of the systems, an exchange will happen almost instantly but even so, time is required for said exchange to be affirmed by other system members.

According to information from Blockchain.info, Bitcoin system’s long haul normal exchange affirmation time is a little over ten minutes for every exchange but even so, this could fluctuate when traffic makes gains. The equal figure for Litecoin is just under three minutes.

Essentially, this kind of level of distinction in affirmation time could make Litecoin considerably more appealing for the dealers.

Underlying Algorithms

One of the biggest and most central differences between the leading cryptocurrency and Litecoin is the underlying algorithms and cryptographic calculations that they both use.

The longstanding new SHA-256 calculation which is used by Bitcoin. Litecoin, on the other hand, utilises a relatively new calculation which is known as Scrypt.

The distinctive differences in the calculations are very important in their effect on the way new coins are mined.

Both Bitcoin and Litecoin have affirming exchanges which require a decent amount of generous registering power.

As reported by Hackernoon, “a few individuals from the system apportion their figuring assets toward affirming the exchanges of different clients”.

In return for this, these individuals are given square rewards by gaining units of the cash which they have mined.

Litecoin’s Doubling

In terms of performance, Litecoin is doing really well. Where there have been a lot of cryptocurrencies which have been suffering during this ‘crypto winter’ LTC seems to be doing quite well.

So far in 2019, Litecoin has made some significant gains and the prime dealer SFOX has tried to explain what has caused said gains in an industry report and pointed out several main factors that could be behind this.

The report claims that when it was initially created, the idea of Litecoin was to be “frictionless, borderless, peer-to-peer electronic cash”.

With this, anything that helps the digital currency fulfil this purpose can potentially boost its price. Over the years that followed since the launch of Litecoin, the number of companies that started to accept it has increased quite significantly.

The mobile app, Spend announced that it was going to be offering a Litecoin function in an upcoming update in February which was a big breakthrough for the digital currency. The update would mean that people could use Litecoin as a payment method for over 40 million merchants on an international level.

The transaction fees have been decreasing and they have also been getting a lot faster. Litecoin has been making progress in decreasing its transaction time which is something that is vital in helping LTC serve as a viable medium of exchange. Over the past year, the fees have gone down too which has made it a lot easier for users which also helps the crypto serve as a medium of exchange too.

These are just a few of the great things happening over at Litecoin, let’s talk about Bitcoin… well, to be honest, there isn’t much to say. BTC recently made the jump above $4,000 but aside from that, there isn’t much to report on as it is as an asset.

This just shows that the two aren’t the same. Sure, they have similarities but they aren’t the same. This is something that is important to clarify.