

Learn how to buy Litecoin with USD with EUR with RUR and with BTC or practically every currency in the world.įinding the easiest way to buy Litecoin, minding the nature of cryptocurrencies and methods of converting them. To get started mining litecoins you could get a 70KHs litecoin miner for about $100 or a 30MHs litecoin miner for about $285. What is Litecoin? Want to learn how to mine litecoins? First, mining litecoins is done via scrypt instead of SHA256. Watch the video below for more information on Litecoin’s block reward: There are many websites that track and estimate block reward halvings. The block reward eventually becomes so small that there can only be 84,000,000 litecoins in existence. Originally, 50 litecoins were issued in each new block. Lee also designed the block reward so that it halves every 840,000 blocks. Lee wanted faster confirmations, so he set Litecoin’s block target time to 2.5 minutes instead of Bitcoin’s ten. Litecoin’s creator, Charlie Lee, essentially copied Bitcoin but change a few parameters. Litecoin mining profitability will depend on the price of litecoin, hash power of your hardware, electricity costs, and hardware efficiency. You can use one of the many litecoin mining calculators to determine the potential profitability of hardware. The difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks, which is about 3.5 days. Unlike gold, however, Litecoin’s difficulty ensures that the new hash power would simply be balanced with a rise in the difficulty of the proof-of-work algorithm. A sudden increase in Litecoin’s price would likely cause more miners to point hash power at the network. No price rise can cause an increase in the rate at which litecoins are mined. The $800 increase could create so much new supply that the price ends up dropping again.Ĭryptocurrencies like Litecoin are different. The increased price would cause gold miners to increase production, and may even push entrepreneurs to create new gold mining businesses. Imagine this scenario: gold prices rise from $1,200 per ounce to $2,000 per ounce. It is an algorithm that is updated based on total network hashing power to ensure that Litecoin blocks are generated on average every 2.5 minutes. The Litecoin mining difficulty is perhaps one of Litecoin’s most important features. This differs from gold, silver and other commodities, which often see mining companies mine at faster rates if price increases. One of the main advantages with cryptocurrencies is that the currency supply can be programmed and distributed at selected intervals. Any attempt to change network rules would create a fork in the blockchain. No old transactions can be erased, and, likewise, no counterfeit or fraud transactions can be created without network consensus. Its public blockchain can be independently verified by anyone.

Unlike traditional payment systems like PayPal, Litecoin is decentralized and distributed. The Litecoin blockchain is a public ledger of all Litecoin transactions. The block reward is paid to miners for each block mined, which provides an incentive for miners to contribute their hashing power to the network. The nodes use the miners’ work to continue to verify and transmit transactions across the network.Īs mentioned earlier, Litecoin mining requires vast amounts of time and electricity, which isn’t cheap. If no double-spends are detected, the miners create a block with new transactions and add it to Litecoin’s existing blockchain.Įach new block is then sent to nodes on the network.

The miners check incoming transactions against previous transactions on the blockchain. Litecoin miners then verify these transactions through proof-of-work. In order to send litecoins, transactions must be included in a block. So, how does Litecoin mining secure the network? Like Bitcoin mining, Litecoin uses proof-of-work which makes mining a costly process in terms of both time and energy. If you are serious about mining litecoins, one option is to simply mine bitcoins with hardware like the Antminer S7 and convert the earned bitcoins to litecoin. The best Litecoin mining hardware available for purchase are graphic cards, but they are not profitable. No such miners are available for Litecoin. It’s possible, for example, to buy a Bitcoin Antminer S7 ASIC on Amazon for $714. Because Litecoin uses a different proof of work function Bitcoin miners cannot mine litecoins. ASICs-powerful computers designed to solve Bitcoin’s proof of work function-are available for litecoin but difficult to purchase. The Litecoin mining industry is less developed than Bitcoin’s. It serves two main purposes:ġ) It secures the network and verifies transactions.Ģ) New litecoins are paid out as a reward to miners. Litecoin mining is done by specialized computers and hardware.
