Steemit Crypto Academy Season 2 Part 1 Task By @abdulhalim100: Altcoins

Hello everyone, it is another great week of the steemit crypto academy after a two weeks break for some amendments within the community. It is another great lecture from professor @yohan2on and i am here to present my homework task.

Intoduction

To begin with I think it is good for us to understand what altcoins are before we start to talk about any of the altcoins. As the name implies altcoin, it is an addition of two words ‘alt’ and ‘coin’ where alt means alternative and coin is referred to as a cryptocurrency. Now when you add both words together you get altcoin which is an alternative cryptocurrency introduced after the successful launching of BTC. An altcoin propose itself as a better replacement for BTC.

The launching of BTC as the first digital currency creates way for many other coins to follow. Most of the altcoins are manufactured base on the basic structure of BTC. However, many of the altcoins are peer-to-peer, which requires a process of mining and solving difficult problems with regards to carrying out web transactions. Altcoins varies widely from one another. As discussed in @yohan2on lecture week 1 on altcoins, there are several types of altcoins, some of these are;

Binance coin (BNB)

Ripple (XRP)

Litecoin (LTC) and many more.

Considering the above mentioned altcoins I am going to talk on LItecoin (LTC) as a type of an altcoin.

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What Is Litecoin (LTC)?

LTC is often referred to as the silver counterpart of BTC and it involves a peer-to-peer internet currency that enables one to do instant payment around the world. It was one of the earliest cryptocuerrencies to enter the coinmarket. LTC is among the top ten (10) cryptocurrencies on the coinmarket list. It is similar to Paypal which works as online payment system. Instead of trading with the U.S. dollar, you trade with LTC units as the medium of exchange.

LTC generates and processes blocks four times faster than BTC. It is widely known that BTC set the groundwork for blockchain technology. Although there are many obstacles with BTC that LTC handled relatively fast. Due to the fast international transactions of LTC at cheap cost and with consumers mining efficiently, it is of no doubt on its future glory.

How Litecoin Started

Charlie Lee a former MIT graduate and Google employee introduced LTC in October 2011 as a digital coin based on BTC’s groundwork. It being one of the first altcoins to be launched following the rise of BTC, many people have decline from 2011 to 2014. LTC secured its position on the coin market due to its slight merits on BTC.

Charlie Lee modified LTC to challenge some of the difficulties possessed by BTC. With regards to the 2.5 minutes processing of LTC compared to the 10 minutes processing of BTC, it makes LTC to process transactions at a much faster rate than BTC. The amount of cap produced by BTC is 21 million while LTC cap is four times that of BTC which about 84 million. LTC became one of the top five cryptocurrencies in May 2017, following its position on the coinmarket listed by the coinbase.

How To Buy Litecoin

One can get LTC from all the major exchange in operation today. The process involve in the buying of LTC is quite different for each platform but in general it all works the same. Below are some five (5) easy ways to purchase LTC;

1. Fill out a registration form if you are new to the platform and open an account with a regulated exchange.

2. Once you complete your registration you the deposit some funds with a debit/credit card, e-wallet, or bank transfer.

3. Indicate the amount of LTC you want to purchase.

4. Confirm the purchasing.

5. You can decide to leave your LTC stored in your account until you decide to cash out.

There are two main ways of purchasing LTC;

1. Direct With Fiat Currency: Some exchanges give LTC/Fiat joining directly. If such case is like this, you simply store your fiat currency onto your exchange wallet. And then select purchase LTC as simple as that. Your LTC will appear in your exchange wallet immediately purchasing.

2. Through Intermediary: In this case if your exchange doesn’t give LTC/Fiat joining, then you will have to purchase BTC first just to trade it for LTC. So far as LTC is one of the popular cryptocurrencies in the world, you can trade any coin for it.

Advantages Of Litecoin

There are a lot of reasons why you should invest in LTC and some of these are;

1. It is an open-source network in a sense that, making amendments to the system is easy. Since the crypto market isn’t stable, changes are usually made in order to respond to the crypto market.

2. Speed is one of the most important advantage of LTC. Litecoin processes transactions using 2.5 minutes. Faster processing rate also mean lower risk of potential attacks.

3. Another major advantage LTC has over the other cryptocurrencies is that it has a low transaction fees as compared to the others. And this can make the adoption of LTC wider and easier.

4. LTC has an upper limit of producing caps as compared to BTC. It produces 84 million caps which is four times bigger than BTC. With this investors will have plenty to invest in.

Disadvantages Of Litecoin

With regards to the advantages of LTC, investing in it has some challenges as well, so investors should take note of the below disadvantages of LTC;

1. Being a branch out BTC many people have the perception of LTC being the same as BTC which makes LTC to have branding issues.

2. LTC is one of the most popular coin on the dark web with 30% of underground dealers accepting it. This can be a major obstacle for investors and users.

Concluding On Litecoin

To conclude with, with all that I have said about LTC I think it is ok to cover a cryptocurrency in these amount of words but you should now have a good understanding about LTC.
Due to the transaction speed of LTC and how cheap it is, you should not consider that it is better as compared to BTC. Thank you all for going through my task.

@yohan2on