Litecoin, one of the oldest and most established cryptocurrencies, is celebrating its ninth anniversary today. Its network went live on Oct. 13, 2011, and has since had zero downtime.
The cryptocurrency was released on Github by ex-Google employee Charlie Lee as an alternative to Bitcoin, about five months after Namecoin, the first known altcoin, was launched.
Given that it is a codebase fork of BTC, Litecoin shares a lot of similar features with the king but its block production time is estimated to be four times faster.
Litecoin achieves a higher level of scalability by using the “scrypt” algorithm instead of energy-hungry SHA256.
Litecoin’s impressive staying power
Since its early days, Litecoin became known as the silver to Bitcoin gold, firmly holding onto its second spot. As of January 2014, Bitcoin and Litecoin were responsible for 99 percent of the total crypto market cap.
It was later topped by XRP and Ethereum before more altcoins, such as Bitcoin Cash and EOS, emerged on the horizon.
Unlike Namecoin and other fads, Litecoin stood the test of time, clinging onto its placement in the top 10 up to this day.
However, it remains down almost 87 percent from the all-time high of $367 that was reached back in December 2017.
Charlie Lee is working a lot harder now
Lee — who infamously dumped all of his LTC holdings at the top — denied rumors about abandoning his creation last August while confirming that developers were still actively working on the project.
In his Oct. 10 tweet, he reiterates that he’s now working on Litecoin “a lot harder” compared to its first five years:
“Stop believing everything FUDers say. I've been working full time on Litecoin since 2017. I've worked on Litecoin a lot harder the past years than during 2011-2016. Not owning LTC doesn't mean I'm not fully invested in the success of Litecoin. Understand that and you will get it.”
Tomiwabold Olajide
Denys Serhiichuk
