Litecoin Fork: All You Need to Know
Introduced in 2011, Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. It is based on Bitcoin’s open source platform; hence it can be modified by anyone to include new features.
The Litecoin founder Charlie Lee introduced Litecoin with a view of increasing the efficiency of the hashing and thereby reducing the block time.
What is a Fork?
Fork describes any divergence in the blockchain which may affect existing transactions. The fork can be a soft or a hard fork.
Hard fork results in permanent divergence from the previous version of the Blockchain; hence it renders the existing nodes irrelevant or incompatible with the new code.
In contrast to this, a soft fork divergence allows both the existing and new nodes to perform operations at the same time.
A hard fork is implemented only when there is confirmation from almost all the miners in the blockchain. Soft fork changes do not require the consent of all miners and hence take less time to implement.
Recently, the first, a hard fork of the Litecoin was launched without any technical hitch. The new fork came with superior mining difficulty retargeting, via the use of the DarkGravity algorithm.
Users of Litecoin are recommended to move their currency from the existing address to a completely new address created with the development of the fork.
Litecoin Fork Features
Transaction cost: Reduced by 90% to provide incentives for use
Symbol: LCC (Litecoin Cash Fork)
Fork Block: 1371111
Claim Ratio: For every 1 LTC you hold at the fork block, you’ll receive 10 LCC
Max Supply: 840 Million
Mining Algorithm: SHA256
Block Time: 2.5 Minutes
If we examine the above details, then it is apparent that as compared to Bitcoin, the block time (Bitcoin- 10 minutes, LCC- 2.5 minutes) is extremely less.
By reducing the transaction cost, the Litecoin team intends to invite transactions in higher numbers.
However, the market is not exactly embracing the new fork. The Litecoin fork got opened at around $1.4 and surged to $9.25 in mid-February. This is a 560 % increase as noted by CoinCodex. Despite this, many cryptocurrency platforms have not yet integrated the new LCC fork.
The reasons, quoted by experts, behind the less acceptance of LCC include market confusion and legitimacy concerns that arose due to LCC related scams in which its origin and name were questioned.
Happy investing!
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are of the author and do not reflect those of Groww.