Like Bitcoin, but hate those transaction times? Then you’ll need to buy Litecoin instead. This is just like Bitcoin, but better.
Litecoin was created in reaction to the success of Bitcoin. It promises to give you a great way to trade without having to deal with all of those fiddly fractions. We’ve found the best Litecoin trading sites so that you can enjoy an easy way to buy and sell one of the world’s most exciting cryptocurrencies – including Coinbase and Binance.
So why would you want to buy Litecoin? Well, this was one of the many cryptocurrencies that quickly arrived on the scene after the launch of Bitcoin. It was created by an employee at Google called Charlie Lee. He wanted to make a cryptocurrency that was just like Bitcoin, but better. This led to the famous suggestion that Litecoin would be ‘silver’ to Bitcoin’s ‘gold’.
Litecoin was first released in October 2011. It features a source code fork of the Bitcoin Core client. This basically means that Litecoin trading feels pretty similar to Bitcoin trading. Despite this, there have been a few notable moments in Litecoin’s history that have stopped it from becoming just another altcoin.
First of all, many of the first wave of crypto fans realised that to buy Litecoin was a smart investment. Some of the best Litecoin trading came early on when the overall value of the crypto jumped by as much as 100% in one 24-hour period in 2013.
This impressive price performance has continued relatively recently too. 2020 saw the price of Litecoin rising from a low of less than $40 to over $170 less than nine months later. Such impressive statistics mean that many people will continue to buy Litecoin.
Litecoin trading has benefited from a variety of upgrades to the crypto network over the past decade. One of the most significant changes occurred when Litecoin became one of the first major cryptocurrencies to use the Segregated Witness soft fork change in its transaction formats.
Moves like this have helped Litecoin trading further its reputation as one of the fastest cryptos. It was created with the idea of helping people make smaller transactions than they would with the likes of Bitcoin. But Litecoin has grown to become one of the leading cryptos by market cap.
Much of this is due to the careful development of the crypto. In fact, its creator – Charlie Lee – even sold most of his Litecoin holdings in 2017 in order to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Just so you know, there have yet to be any major Litecoin hacks.
We’ve made it pretty clear that Litecoin is pretty similar to Bitcoin. But there are some important differences to be aware of.
One of the major differences is that Litecoin offers faster transaction speeds. It’s thought that the average transaction speed for Bitcoin is about nine minutes. Litecoin is much faster than this as it only takes around two and half minutes for a Litecoin transaction to go through. This means that you can look forward to getting payments nearly four-times as fast with Litecoin compared to Bitcoin.
There’s also the fact that Litecoin trading is psychologically much easier than buying and selling Bitcoin. This is because you won’t have to be dealing in tiny fractions to buy small goods like you would with Bitcoin. There can be up to 84 million Litecoin coins compared to 21 million for Bitcoin. While both of these cryptos are infinitely divisible, it gets pretty hard to calculate something’s value when you’re paying 0.00000001 BTC. But when you buy Litecoin, it should be much simpler.
Much has been made of just how fast Litecoin transactions are. But that doesn’t mean that you won’t be safe when you make Litecoin payments. This is because the basic transactions that you make with Litecoin are just the same as when you’re buying with Bitcoin or are trying some Ethereum trading.
This is because you’ll buy Litecoin from an exchange, and you’d hold the keys for these coins in your digital wallet. It uses a safe proof of work blockchain technology, and the fact that it hasn’t had a major hack is a testament to its durability.
It’s also worth noting that Litecoin has fundamentally different algorithms from that of Bitcoin. Litecoin uses a cryptographic algorithm called Scrypt which offers a few interesting differences to the SHA-256 algorithm used by Bitcoin.
Simply put, it’s much easier to mine Litecoin than it is Bitcoin. The sheer complexity of Bitcoin mining has meant that this activity has become an entire industry in itself. The cost of acquiring the specialist hardware required for Bitcoin mining on a decent scale has pushed it out of the reach of most average crypto fans.
But the Scrypt algorithm of Litecoin has proven to be much more accessible. As such you can mine your own Litecoin via a standard CPU or GPU. This gives Litecoin another advantage over many rival cryptos. Particularly as you may be able to enjoy XRP trading, but you won’t be able to actually mine that cryptocurrency.
Most casual crypto users probably won’t be too concerned with how easy it is to mine a cryptocurrency. But the ease of use has a big impact on the overall growth of cryptocurrencies over the long-term. As it stands, it looks like Litecoin is set for a bright future.
We think that just about everyone can enjoy Litecoin trading. After all, the entire concept of this crypto was to offer a faster and more user-friendly cryptocurrency than Bitcoin. Here is a quick look at just how simple it is to buy Litecoin.
As Litecoin is one of the top 10 cryptos according to market cap, it should be easy to find a crypto trading site that features this cryptocurrency. All of the crypto trading sites on our shortlist have been found to let you buy and sell Litecoin. Plus you can check our reviews of these crypto trading sites to see how various things like transaction fees could affect the success of your Litecoin trades.
Once you’ve found a crypto trading site you like the look of, you’ll need to register an account. This is a pretty simple process and can be carried out in a couple of minutes. After all, you’ll probably have to do little more than provide the trading site with your email address and then make up a username and password.
The final step of creating your account will be to verify all of your personal details. This means providing the trading site with some sensitive personal information like your name, address, date of birth and telephone number. As such, it can be a good idea to double-check that the trading site is regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. This would show that your choice of trading site was going to take good care of your personal data and your deposits too.
After you’ve verified your account, you’ll be ready to make a deposit. Most crypto trading sites will allow you to deposit in either a cryptocurrency or a regular fiat currency. It’s usually easier to deposit in cryptocurrencies as you won’t have to provide any more verification and the deposits should also be much faster to process. You will simply have to go to the deposits area of the trading site and get the address for where you have to send the crypto deposits to. Then you can open up your wallet, enter in the address, decide how much you wish to deposit, and then send the money. Most cryptocurrency deposits should be processed in less than 10 minutes.
Once you have the money in your account, you’ll be ready to buy your Litecoin. Most trading sites will simply have a page that displays all of the cryptocurrencies that you can buy and sell. Be sure to check the current market price for Litecoin and see how much it has risen or fallen recently. From here you should simply be able to click on a Buy tab. Here you will get to enter in how much Litecoin you would like to buy. Once you submit your request, the funds should almost instantly be added to your account and you can look forward to using Litecoin.
Few people would argue with the fact that Litecoin has shown impressive growth rates over the past decade. Like most cryptocurrencies, Litecoin has shown a fair amount of volatility throughout the years. As of January 2021, the all time high of Litecoin was $360.66. While the price of Litecoin has slipped since that high, there are plenty of signs that the fortunes of Litecoin are on the rise.
This is because there are currently well over 65,000 transactions of Litecoin in any 24-hour period, and there is thought to be over $160 million of this crypto traded each day. Litecoin has managed to position itself as a truly credible alternative to Bitcoin. While there is always the likes of Bitcoin Cash trading, the sheer speed of Litecoin transactions means that it will always be a viable option. Plus with the average transaction fee of Litecoin being less than $0.03, it seems that this crypto has positioned itself nicely to make solid gains.
The key thing to realise here is that there have been no major hacks of Litecoin. This is pretty impressive for a major cryptocurrency that has been in existence since way back in 2011. Everything about the Litecoin crypto seems to suggest accountability and transparency. From the use of the proof of work ecosystem to the fact that its creator sold most of his Litecoin to avoid a conflict of interest shows that Litecoin can be trusted.
It’s something that extends across most reviews of Litecoin on the internet. While larger cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have become targets for some illegitimate online enterprises, Litecoin has managed to slip by unscathed.
Perhaps it’s because of this that Litecoin has become a trusted open-source P2P digital currency. Plus the fact that Litecoin can even be mined by anybody with consumer-grade computer equipment again strengthens its reputation. Click here to see how this compares with Binance Coin trading.
By now you should be well aware of all of the main benefits for you to buy Litecoin. This is because it features all of the important trust features that you’d expect from any cryptocurrency. It is based on a proof-of-work ecosystem, has never had a major hack, and is one of the top 10 cryptos by market cap.
But many Litecoin trading reviews have found that this crypto offers a few notable advantages over the likes of Bitcoin. These include transaction times that are nearly four times as fast, and you won’t have to get your calculator out to trade Litecoin thanks to the relative lack of microscopic fractions.
Obviously, you should always take care when you buy crypto online and we should note that we do not have the regulation to offer investment advice. But if you want our basic Litecoin prediction, it’s that this is a crypto that is going places.
Trading financial products carries a high risk to your capital, especially trading leverage products such as CFDs. CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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