Understanding Litecoin Transfer Times
Litecoin transfer times are usually very fast and do not require you to check whether the transaction has been processed or not. Indeed, transaction speeds on the Litecoin network are very fast and one of the most important features of Litecoin. While Bitcoin can be used to send and receive transactions from all over the world, Litecoin can do so faster and more efficiently.
During periods of congestion on the Bitcoin network, Ethereum (ETH) becomes a useful currency to send and receive transactions. However, Ethereum has also been affected by scalability issues over the last few years. Litecoin transfer times become a very important asset related to LTC.
What is Litecoin?
Litecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies in the market. It was created by Charlie Lee, an ex-Google employee that was already using Bitcoin and wanted to create an alternative virtual currency that would be faster and cheaper to use.
Litecoin expanded over the last decade as a cryptocurrency to process transfers and to help Bitcoin test new functionalities. Indeed, Litecoin is known around the world for being the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.
This virtual currency is very similar to Bitcoin and it shares many things with the king of the virtual currencies. In the first place, Bitcoin and Litecoin are coins that have a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. That means that transactions are processed by miners that run specialized hardware and help the network to remain secure.
Although Bitcoin blocks are found every 10 minutes on average, Litecoin blocks take 2.5 minutes to be mined. The rewards per block are also similar on both of these networks. At the moment, 6.25 BTC are rewarded to miners in each of the blocks, while 12.5 LTC are rewarded to LTC miners each time they find a block.
However, Litecoin is expected to follow the same path as Bitcoin by reducing the rewards to miners by 50% every four years. Considering LTC was launched later than BTC, it is 3 years behind in terms of mining rewards.
Litecoin transfer times are also related to how fast blocks are processed. The network is not congested, blocks are processed very fast and transaction fees are also barely noticeable. In this way, individuals are able to process LTC transfers for as low as $0.01 per transfer. This is why Litecoin transfer times are so important and are worth analysing.
There are also going to be 84 million LTC. This is four times more than the number of BTC that is expected to ever be mined. Litecoin transfer times are not basically 4 times faster than Bitcoin transfers but also cheaper. We will get into those details in this article.
If we now think about LTC’s price, we see that you can buy Litecoin token for $127 each. At the same time, at the time of writing, it has a market valuation of $8.51 billion.
Litecoin Transfer Times
As we mentioned before, Litecoin transfer times are fast and the fees per transaction are also very low. This can be seen in how fast blocks are processed on the Litecoin network. According to data provided by BitInfoCharts, the average Litecoin block time in the last three years has fluctuated between 2.32 and 2.81 minutes per block. Transfers that required just one confirmation were processed in less than three minutes, while transfers that required 3 confirmations were processed in less than 9 minutes.
Moreover, Litecoin blocks are not full as on the Bitcoin network. Users are able to process transactions without being worried about not being processed on time. Indeed, Litecoin transfer times are also so fast because it can process 4 times as many transactions as the Bitcoin network.
It is clear that Litecoin is also not as congested as Bitcoin or Ethereum due to the fact that it does not have a whole ecosystem built on top of it. Nonetheless, Litecoin is able to still process ten times as many transactions as now in order for its blocks to get close to a limit.
Litecoin is nowadays processing more than 110,000 transactions per day, according to data provided by Statista.com. This shows that the virtual currency is very useful for users that want to avoid overpaying for their transfers and waiting longer than what they should for their funds to reach another person or company.
Litecoin transfer times are the main selling point of this virtual currency alongside its fees. The fees are also very low, and we will discuss that in the following section. It would be interesting to see how the Litecoin project will evolve in the future.
Will the ecosystem grow beyond transactions to pay for goods and services? Would Litecoin be used to power decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions? The answer to these questions would let us understand what Litecoin has to offer and how it could make it possible for users to get access to some of the best solutions in the crypto market.
Litecoin Fees
Let’s now focus on Litecoin fees after talking about Litecoin transfer times. This is also one of the main topics and advantages related to the LTC virtual currency. Users that come to the crypto market are searching for secure, established and reliable digital assets with fast transaction times and low fees. Litecoin is a clear example of this type of virtual currency.
In the image below, we have a chart with Litecoin transaction fees for the last three months.
This shows that the average LTC transfer fluctuated between $0.0195 and $0.0942 during peak times. This is very useful for users that want to send fast and cheap transfers all over the world.
Rather than using Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin holders can send and receive money anywhere around the globe for just $0.02. That’s certainly one of the best things about this virtual currency.
But things become even clearer when compared to other blockchain networks such as BTC and ETH. Let’s get a closer look at these charts. These are Bitcoin transaction fees compared to Litecoin transaction fees. As you can see, LTC fees are close to zero when compared to Bitcoin.
This shows how cheap Litecoin transfers are when compared to the largest virtual currency in the world.
However, Litecoin does not want to compete with Bitcoin. Indeed, Bitcoin works as another layer for BTC users that want to process fast transfers and with low fees. Litecoin transfer times and fees are the best assets of this virtual currency, and Litecoin developers want to help Bitcoin. Indeed, several Litecoin developers are also Bitcoin developers.
Let’s now add Ethereum to the chart and compare the fees between Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.
As shown in the chart, Litecoin fees are also close to zero when compared to both BTC and ETH. But coming back to the previous section, we need to also understand that Litecoin does not have the active community that both Bitcoin and Ethereum have. This is why Bitcoin and Ethereum fees and transaction times are higher than Litecoin.
Litecoin Use Cases
Litecoin has clearly different use cases compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum. Litecoin is a blockchain network that helps users process transfers and pay for goods and services. However, it does not work as a digital asset to power decentralized finance (DeFi) due to the lack of complex smart contracts.
Nonetheless, Litecoin developers are currently working in order to make it more private than Bitcoin and Ethereum. Nowadays, these three virtual currencies have public blockchains. That means that everyone could search for information about specific wallets or transactions.
In terms of privacy, this is not ideal. This is why Litecoin is working to implement Confidential Transactions through MimbleWimble. The goal is to make LTC fungible and reduce the dependency on public blockchain networks.
Most of the transactions processed on the Litecoin network are from users that are transferring funds or that want to simply pay for goods and services. In some cases, LTC works as a bridge currency.
This works as follows. A crypto user wants to transfer Bitcoin or Ethereum from exchange A to exchange B. Rather than paying large fees and waiting hours to have their transaction processed, they purchase LTC to send the funds. In this way, from exchange A to exchange B, the transfer takes just a few minutes and the fees are close to zero.
Thus, Litecoin is also helping two of the largest virtual currencies to reduce their congestion and avoid having larger fees and longer transaction times. Nevertheless, it is important for Litecoin to also move forward by expanding its use cases. Decentralized finance and confidential transactions are just some of the examples of how LTC could reach a larger number of users in the market.
Is Litecoin Mining Profitable?
With so low fees and no full blocks, one of the questions we sometimes hear is related to Litecoin mining profitability. Litecoin transfer times are also related to miners that protect the network and make it possible for Litecoin to be one of the safest networks in the world.
Throughout 2020, Bitcoin mining became very profitable for users and miners. It is worth mentioning that in order to mine Litecoin, it is necessary to use ASIC miners. It is so competitive to mine Litecoin nowadays that miners require specialized hardware.
In order to increase Litecoin mining profitability, it is also possible to do merge mining. That means that without reducing its efficiency in mining LTC, it is also possible to mine Dogecoin (DOGE) at the same time. Merged mining is a common thing in the mining industry.
For example, on the Bitcoin network, Bitcoin miners can do merge mining with RSK. This is a very common practice that Litecoin users can also apply to make mining activities more profitable. This, however, does not have a clear impact on Litecoin transfer times.
Some smaller miners that want to have access to Litecoin mining can also do so with GPUs. However, this is not as profitable as with traditional ASIC miners, which are very efficient and dedicated to this task.
Furthermore, having access to cheap electricity is also an important thing for those that want to make Lincoln mining more profitable. However, this is not the most important thing. There are some countries that have low electricity prices, and that makes Litecoin mining more efficient.
Using renewable energy sources is also a good way to reduce costs (electricity) and improve Litecoin mining capabilities. This is something that can be implemented in both Bitcoin (BTC) or Litecoin mining. In recent years, several Bitcoin miners have invested in their own renewable energy sources such as solar panels.
Litecoin Transfer Times in the Future
Litecoin transfer times in the future are expected to be as fast as now, or even faster. The Lightning Network could also expand for Litecoin as well and make it possible for users to send and receive LTC coins for less money than now and faster even than the current Litecoin transfer times.
This shows that the Litecoin community is excited about the future of the virtual currency. Moreover, Litecoin transfer times would become more efficient as they can also process larger transfers. When the price of LTC grows, each LTC is worth more and larger transfers require fewer LTC coins. That means that it is possible for the network to use the current Litecoin transfer times and process even larger and more valuable transfers.
Everything will also depend on how the ecosystem evolves. A 10x growth in terms of transactions is highly possible for crypto networks. Indeed, it is a very large possibility to see Litecoin reaching this target if the ecosystem expands in terms of DeFi or other proposals that could make LTC more useful for individuals.
Let’s not forget that Litecoin transfer times are also so fast because the network is used mainly as a side-chain to Bitcoin and Ethereum for users that want to process fast and cheap transactions. Nevertheless, those users and investors that want to interact with smart contracts or have access to DeFi solutions do so through BTC and ETH.
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