What is Litecoin (LTC)?

Litecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies still in wide use. It began as a copy of Bitcoin's code with a few settings changed: blocks come four times as often, and the total supply is four times as large.

Where it came from

Litecoin launched in October 2011 as a fork of the Bitcoin codebase. Its creator sold all his LTC in December 2017.

How it works

Litecoin works like Bitcoin. Read Lessons 2 to 5 and you know most of it.

• Mining secures the network, as in Lesson 4. Litecoin uses a different mining puzzle, called Scrypt.
• Blocks arrive about every 2.5 minutes instead of 10.
• Privacy option. In May 2022 Litecoin added MWEB, an optional feature that hides the amounts of payments that use it. Ordinary payments are as public as Bitcoin's.

Supply

Litecoin copies Bitcoin's schedule, scaled up.

• The total is fixed at 84 million LTC.
• New coins are created only as the reward for mining a block.
• The reward halves every 840,000 blocks, about every four years. On 2 August 2023 it fell from 12.5 to 6.25 LTC. The next halving, to 3.125 LTC, is expected around the end of July 2027.

What people use it for

People use Litecoin for payments and hold and trade it like other coins. In October 2025, a fund holding Litecoin began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker LTCC, so US investors can now also hold it through a brokerage account.

Risks to know

• Competition. Litecoin's original selling point was faster, cheaper payments than Bitcoin. Many newer networks and stablecoins now offer the same.
• Mining concentration. A smaller mining network is cheaper to attack than Bitcoin's. The Monero guide describes such an attack.
• Price swings. LTC can fall far and fast, like other coins.

Learn more

Lesson 4 explains mining, Lesson 5 covers halvings and capped supply, and the Bitcoin guide describes the design Litecoin copied.