How to Buy Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin (LTC) is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies enjoying one of the biggest market capitalization among crypto assets. Having been around for almost as long as majors like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is one the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, enjoying a strong rate of adoption as a payment method by businesses, consumers and even leading payment gateways.

These factors make the LTC digital currency a worthwhile investment to consider having in your portfolio. In addition, Litecoin has a limited supply similar to that of Bitcoin, and is often considered a store of value just like the leading digital asset worldwide.

As silver to Bitcoin’s gold, LTC’s status as an investment opportunity is quite strong. As the adoption of digital currencies rises as both an investment class and as a technology to use, the Litecoin price could enjoy considerable support and climb higher.

In addition to an increase in the uptick of digital assets, the LTC price statistics could enjoy a higher push upwards as its next halving date approaches. As Litecoin mining becomes more complex, the price of LTC crypto can rise even higher, especially since it has a fixed supply like Bitcoin.

Litecoin (LTC) has several use cases in the market, including:

Payment Network

Litecoin works as a cost-effective, fast, and highly secure way to transfer payments across borders in a decentralized, transparent, and cryptographically secure manner. Using LTC to enable digital payments with lower fees is one of the biggest drivers of this cryptocurrency’s adoption worldwide.

Store of Value

Litecoin is also considered an attractive store of value, much like rare commodities like gold and silver in the mainstream financial market. Often compared to silver while Bitcoin is compared to gold, LTC enjoys the status of a store of value among crypto investors due to its finite supply and low fees, although the Litecoin price remains well below that of Bitcoin owing to higher supply.

Crypto Asset to Trade and HODL

As one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, Litecoin is an attractive instrument to invest in within the crypto industry as it is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies that are still around, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can buy or sell LTC against other cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges or HODL Litecoin if you believe in its long term potential as an investment opportunity. Always ensure that you check the live Litecoin price, LTC current market cap, current circulating supply, 24 hour trading volume and news so you know the right time to enter the market.

Earn Passive Income

You can also grow your Litecoin holdings by lending liquidity in LTC on the CryptoGem platform. Head to our Crypto Lending section and look for the Litecoin crypto from the list of options we offer.

Enter the number of LTC you wish to invest in, select the duration period from the options of 7 days, 14 days or 28 days. You will then get an estimate on the daily interest rate and profits you can earn by lending liquidity in Litecoin.

Litecoin was created from a hard fork of the original Bitcoin source code. Here are the key differences between LTC and BTC:

Total Supply

Bitcoin - the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has a total supply or max supply of 21 million, which means there can be only 21 million BTC ever created. On the other hand, Litecoin enjoys a higher max supply, fixed at 84 million. However, the higher max supply results in Litecoin price being far lower than that of Bitcoin in the crypto market.

Block Size and Transaction Speed

Each block on the Litecoin network has a larger size and can store more data as a result, than each block in the Bitcoin network. This is the key reason why Litecoin enjoys a higher transaction speed than Bitcoin.

Mining Process

Litecoin uses Scrypt as its hashing algorithm which requires lesser computing power and resources for mining LTC. On the other hand, Bitcoin’s use of SHA-256 hashing algorithm makes its mining far more energy intensive and requires more complex mining equipment, which acts as a deterrent from a sustainability perspective.

Litecoin mining allows you to validate transactions taking place on the blockchain and record them in new blocks being added continuously to its network. In the process, new LTC digital currency is mined and added to the crypto’s circulating supply, a portion of which you can receive as block reward for your efforts.

Here’s how you can mine LTC:

Invest in Litecoin Mining Equipment

You will need special mining rigs in order to mine Litecoin, which are computers with higher processing power needed to solve complex mathematical problems while verifying transactions. ASICs (algorithm-specific integrated circuits) can support Litecoin’s Scrypt hashing algorithm.

While this may require considerable capital investment on your part, the advantage is that you can use the same hardware to also mine Dogecoin (DOGE).

Download Software to Mine Litecoin

Your next step to configure the recently acquired mining rig is to download the software which will let you connect to the Litecoin blockchain and start mining LTC. The basic software will let you mine LTC while more complex solutions can support multiple kinds of cryptocurrency mining.

Find and Join a Mining Pool

Mining pools help you combine computing resources and increase the chances of competing and winning the chance to validate Litecoin transactions. While joining a mining pool does slash your rewards in comparison with operating as an individual miner, it does increase the chances of being selected and earning rewards.

Enter Your Litecoin Wallet Address to Start

After configuring your mining rig and software, it’s time to set up your account and add the wallet address to which you can receive rewards for mining LTC. Get started with mining Litecoin and watch your holdings grow over time.

MetaMask only supports EVM-compatible blockchains and their tokens, and Litecoin is not an EVM-compatible network. While you cannot add Litecoin’s native token, LTC, to MetaMask as the wallet has no support for the blockchain yet, you can add a wrapped or pegged LTC token from supported blockchains to MetaMask.

Here’s how to add the Binance-Peg LTC token to your MetaMask wallet:

1. Set up your MetaMask wallet if you don’t already have an account.

2. Change your network from the default option of Ethereum mainnet to Binance smart chain.

3. Scroll down to the Import tokens option.

4. Copy the contract address for the Binance-Pegged Litecoin token: ​​0x4338665cbb7b2485a8855a139b75d5e34ab0db94.

5. Enter LTC as the Token Symbol, click Add Custom Token, and then confirm by clicking Import Token on the next page.

6. Verify that LTC has been added by checking supported assets in your MetaMask wallet’s Binance smart chain Assets section.