Litecoin is one of the earliest Bitcoin forks, created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee. It processes transactions 4x faster than Bitcoin and uses the Scrypt hashing algorithm. Often called digital silver to Bitcoin's digital gold, it has one of the longest track records in crypto.
2011
Charlie Lee releases Litecoin as a Bitcoin fork
2017
Litecoin activates SegWit — the first major coin to do so before Bitcoin
2019
Litecoin halving — block reward drops to 12.5 LTC
2023
Litecoin MWEB privacy upgrade activates
Fast peer-to-peer payments, store of value, on-chain transactions
💡 Did You Know
Charlie Lee sold all of his Litecoin at the peak of the 2017 bull market — which he called a conflict of interest. The price dropped sharply shortly after.
⚠ Controversies & Red Flags
Litecoin has struggled to differentiate itself and achieve meaningful adoption beyond being a test network for Bitcoin features.