Crypto Academy Week 9 - Homework Post for @yohan2on

LITECOIN (LTC)
Litecoin exists as a blockchain that allows its nodes' participant to process transactions and miners are the ones that provide security and verification for each and every transactions that takes place; it is among the first altcoin that entered the market; it is an open and as well as a peer to peer cryptocurrency network that operates more than the technology of Bitcoin operations and it is presently among the 5 largest cryptocurrency in the world.
It was originally conceived and developed in 2011. It is a proof of work (PoW) crypto currency that was developed by a former Google and Coinbaise engineer known as Charlie Lee. When Lee wanted to create the Litecoin crypto currency, he copied the Bitcoin codebase, increased the total supply and changed the speed at which new blocks are added to the blockchain. Since its launch in 2011, it has seen a steady increase in its adoption with an active digital community of traders, merchants, and developers.

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Like other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin was designed for everyday use and it cannot be issued and regulated government and has been the only entity that is trusted by the society to issue money. It is decentralised and so it is not regulated by a central bank. Such like other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin is processed by the elaborate procedure which is referred to as mining, which consists of processing a list of Litecoin transactions. Unlike bank notes, the supply of Litecoins is fixed; it has a maximum supply that will ultimately cap to 84 million Litecoins which will be in circulation and not even one more. In every 2.5 minutes as against the 10 minutes for Bitcoin generation, the Litecoin blockchain network generates what is called a block.

A block is a ledger entry that allows the newly added Litecoin transactions throughout the world. The block is then verified by a mining software and will be seen by any miner who wants to see it. Once it is seen and verified by a miner, it makes it possible for another block to enter the chain, which is a record of every Litecoin transaction that is ever made.

What does a miner gain after a successful Litecoin mining?
The incentive for mining is that the first miner that verifies a block successfully, is rewarded with 12.5 Litecoins. The number of Litecoins awarded for mining of Litecoin reduces with time.

In August 2015, it was halved, and it will continue to be halved at regular intervals until the 84 millionth Litecoin is mined.
Moreover, if there is a miner who tries to change the block, such a scam would be detected automatically and immediately by some other miners, who are anonymous to the scammer(s).

@yohan2on

The only way to cheat the system would be by getting a majority of miners to agree to process the false transaction, which is almost not impossible to do.

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Litecoin is mined with the Scrypt algorithm, that has an intentive memory in comparison to Bitcoin's SHA256; Scrypt has a hash rate ( the rate at which Distributed ledger transaction (DLT) are recorded with an unchangeable and unalterable cryptographic signature) that is lower, which is responsible for Litecoin’s faster block times; It can be mined with an ordinary off the shelf computers which is in contrast to the mining of most cryptocurrencies; because for such cryptocurrencies to be mined, it requires ungodly processing power that is offered by specialised softwares. Though, the greater the capacity and capability of a machine, the greater the chance of its miner to earn something bigger.
There are a lot of benefits that are attached to Litecoin investment some of which are as follows:
The presence of lower costs of transactions: The technology of Litecoin presents a quite number of improvements on Bitcoin’s infrastructure. For instance, When a Bitcoin is sent from one wallet to another wallet, a bit of crypto is lost as the blockchain verifies the transaction.

Even though, Litecoin also operates in a manner that is related to that but its network is more proficient and more profitable than Bitcoin, which means that less money is lost when a person initiates or receives a transfer. This is a advantageous for users who invest in cryptocurrency because of its benefits as a system that secures the transfer if money.
High transaction speeds; because it is mined with the Scrypt algorithm which there is an increased rate at which transactions are recorded. It also enables users to send coins more quickly when compared to Bitcoin’s blockchain. The average Litecoin transaction takes up to 2.5 minutes to complete, in contrast to Bitcoin transaction that takes up to 10 minutes before completion.

A decrease in vulnerability to hacking attempts: Cryptocurrencies are most sensitive to fraud, scam and hacking attempts during transactions. But Litecoin transactions take only a fraction of the time to close as a Bitcoin transaction, with this; there is only a narrow space where hackers can attempt to double spend and this makes Litecoin transactions less susceptible to scam.
Litecoin is structured on an Open source platform of the BTC Core Client. This makes it much simpler for developers to adjust the system and put in new features to keep up with any change that may possibly occur in the market. More so, Its flexibility enables developers to make software security patches on a regular basis to beat up any method of attack that scammers may think of.

THE NEGATIVITIES ATTACHED TO LITECOIN INCLUDE

ANONIMITY
ABSENCE OF LEGISLATION
HIGH VOLATILITY