How does Ethereum (ETH) compare to Litecoin (LTC)?

Although Bitcoin dominates much of the crypto market and media since it was the first to market, there are many other options for people interested in investing in cryptocurrencies.

There are actually thousands of different types of cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, on the market today. Two of the most popular cryptocurrencies are Litecoin and Ethereum, which are both often in the top five list by market cap.

Why are these coins so popular, and what’s the difference?

Click for convert bitcoin to usd

 instant

While often compared, these coins are actually quite different from a technical standpoint, and when investors look at putting their money into Litecoin vs. Ethereum, different people might choose one over the other for different reasons.

Let’s dive into the details.

Ethereum vs. Litecoin: Key Similarities and Differences

• Both cryptocurrencies can be purchased on most major exchanges.

• Both have fast transaction times (faster than Bitcoin).

• Both are open-source, peer-to-peer networks.

• Both currently use Proof of Work mining, but Ethereum may switch to Proof of Stake.

• LTC has a supply limit of 84 billion coins. Ethereum doesn’t have a fixed supply limit.

• Ethereum has lower block rewards for validators, which keeps the supply in check.

• Litecoin has transaction fees, while Ethereum has gas fees.

• Litecoin is primarily used as a currency, whereas Ethereum can also be used to create contracts and transfer property.

Major Features of Litecoin

Litecoin (LTC) was created in 2011 by former Google employee Charlie Lee. It is actually a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain, making it similar to Bitcoin in a number of ways.

A fork happens when miners don’t agree on an update made to a proof-of-work blockchain. The updated version becomes a fork of the original version, and the miners who didn’t agree to the update continue to mine the original blockchain. Charlie Lee initiated an update to the Bitcoin blockchain, but not enough miners agreed to the update, so it became a fork which was named Litecoin.

Lee’s goal in creating Litecoin was to make a faster, fairer, and cheaper version of Bitcoin. Litecoin has lower transaction fees than Bitcoin and it’s up to four times faster to mine each block. It takes 10 minutes to mine a Bitcoin block, but only 2.5 minutes to mine a Litecoin block.

This means that it takes less time for each transaction to be completed as well. Litecoin also has a much larger total supply than Bitcoin.

There are 84 million Litecoins, but only 21 million Bitcoins. Like Bitcoin, each Litecoin can be divided up to 8 decimal places.

In 2017, the Litecoin network implemented both Segregated Witness, or SegWit, and the Lightning Network Protocol. These were both updates meant for the Bitcoin blockchain, but the Bitcoin mining community couldn’t agree about them as quickly as the Litecoin community did.

Since the market cap of Litecoin is smaller, it’s less risky for the network to try out new updates than it would be on the Bitcoin network. In this way, Litecoin has become a testing ground for new functionality.

Major Features of Ethereum

Bitcoin enthusiast and programmer Vitalik Buterin came up with the concept for Ethereum and released a whitepaper outlining its uses in 2013. Other developers who believed in the idea helped code the Ethereum blockchain, which went live in 2015.

Although Ethereum can function as a medium of exchange similar to other cryptocurrencies, its main purpose is to act as a decentralized application platform. The ether token (ETH) acts as the fuel for contracts and applications built on the platform. Users can create smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.

These contracts can contain information or exchanges such as property transfers, sets of rules, monetary exchanges, or other agreements.

The rise of initial coin offerings, or ICOs, that occurred in 2017 was largely due to Ethereum. The network allows developers to easily build their own custom token projects and sell tokens to investors.

Ethereum is a much faster blockchain than both Bitcoin and Litecoin. Blocks are mined every 10 to 20 seconds.

Another main difference between ETH and LTC is that there is not a capped supply limit of Ethereum. Since the Ethereum blockchain was designed to be a platform for decentralized application services, the team decided not to cap the supply. Ethereum has a much lower block reward than LTC or BTC, which keeps the supply in check.

Ethereum and Litecoin are similar in that they are completely open-source, peer-to-peer networks. This means that anyone can read their source code or join their network, and anyone can purchase equipment to mine Litecoin.