Litecoin Sees Fake, But Overhyped Fork, Possibly a Scam

Litecoin has been seen as a "boring" crypto coin - but this time, the unassuming asset will see its first major and over-hyped "hard fork". The move is mystifying, given that the Litecoin community has built general consensus and the project develops without major disagreements.

The creator of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, believes there is no need for a technological fork, and the upcoming projects or announcements may be a scam:

PSA: The Litecoin team and I are not forking Litecoin. Any forks that you hear about is a scam trying to confuse you to think it's related to Litecoin. Don't fall for it and definitely don't enter your private keys or seed into their website or client. Be careful out there! 

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) February 4, 2018

Yet an actual fork, Litecoin Cash, is in the works. The idea is mystifying, given that Litecoin serves well as digital cash, with high speeds and low fees, as well as wider adoption on the part of online merchants. Therefore, the fork comes with a warning:

Please do not try to claim any “Litecoin Cash” through a third party wallet. It is most likely a scam to steal your Litecoin. Remember, Litecoin devs are not forking Litecoin.

— Litecoin Support [LTC] (@LitecoinSupport) February 9, 2018

Hard fork scams usually work by promising a technological answer to splitting the balances and having access to the balance on the alternative blockchain. Users are advised to avoid exposing private keys to sites claiming to be a splitting service, or to untested wallets.

Litecoin gained popularity in the past months, and newcomers may be confused by a high-profile fork where the name has a certain familiar ring to it. But beyond the attempt at branding and riding on the fame of Bitcoin forks, the Litecoin competitor will probably not have any effect on the original project.

Litecoin Cash: A Confusing Asset

Litecoin Cash has chosen the path of Bitcoin Cash, but technologically, there is little connection between LTC and the forked asset.

The Litecoin Cash idea has been around for months, but only recently gained prominence. There have been older, now-defunct forks of Litecoin, but without sharing a common blockchain history.

In the case of Litecoin Cash, the two assets may not even share a blockchain. The reason for this is that Litecoin Cash seems to be an Ethereum-based token. It trades on Ether Delta, and has been distributed as an airdrop. There is no mention of mining the Scrypt algorithm. So Litecoin Cash may be just a token created out of nothing, riding on the publicity of the original asset.

With this in mind, splitting LTC balances is not technologically possible. Nor is there a reason to alter the blockchain rules for Litecoin.

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