What is Litecoin?
See the Litecoin Association's introductory video to Litecoin.
Just like its older brother Bitcoin, Litecoin is an online network that people can use to send payments from one person to another. Litecoin is peer-to-peer and decentralized, meaning that it is not controlled by any single entity or government. The payment system does not handle physical currencies, like the dollar or the euro; instead, it uses its own unit of account, which is also called litecoin (symbol: Ł or LTC). This is why you will often see Litecoin categorized as a virtual or digital currency. Litecoins can be bought and sold for traditional money at a variety of exchanges available online.
If you already know Bitcoin, Litecoin is very similar, the two main differences being that it has faster confirmation times and it uses a different hashing algorithm.
What is Mining?
Instead of having one central authority that secures and controls the money supply (like most governments do for their national currencies), Litecoin spreads this work across a network of “miners”. Miners assemble all new transactions appearing on the Litecoin network into large bundles called blocks, which collectively constitute an authoritative record of all transactions ever made, the blockchain.
The way Litecoin makes sure there is only one blockchain is by making blocks really hard to produce. So instead of just being able to make blocks at will, miners have to produce a cryptographic hash of the block that meets certain criteria, and the only way to find one is to try computing many of them until you get lucky and find one that works. This process is referred to as hashing. The miner that successfully creates a block is rewarded with 12.5 freshly minted litecoins.
Every few days, the difficulty of the criteria for the hash is adjusted based on how frequently blocks are appearing, so more competition between miners equals more work needed to find a block. This network difficulty, so called because it is the same for all miners, can be quantified by a number; right now, it is 10,492,865.
Should You Mine Litecoins?
Litecoin mining can be profitable, but only under certain conditions. In the early days people could make a profit by mining with their CPUs and GPUs, but that is no more the case today. The introduction of specialized mining hardware (commonly referred to as ASICs), which can mine much faster and much more efficiently, has made finding blocks much harder with general-purpose hardware.
If you compare the profitability analyses for a CPU, a GPU and an ASIC, you will see that the costs of CPU and GPU mining largely exceed the rewards, and even with free electricity the profits are so small that they are hardly worth the effort.
Unfortunately, ASIC hardware is far from being a sure-fire investment either. Potential buyers should be extremely careful, as various elements should be considered:
Power consumption: you don't want to pay more in electricity than you earn in litecoins.
Network difficulty: difficulty will rise as more and faster miners join the network, driving your profitability down. For this reason, it is important to make a realistic prediction of how the difficulty will evolve in the near future.
Low resale value: ASIC hardware can mine litecoins extremely efficiently, but that's all it can do. It cannot be refitted for other purposes, so the resale value is very low.
Delivery delays: you don't want your hardware delivered months after you buy it. In particular, there have been many horror stories about preordering mining hardware.
Most importantly: always do your own research, and never trust any single source of information. Good starting points are LitecoinTalk.io and the /r/litecoin and /r/litecoinmining subreddits.
Don't feel like investing in expensive hardware? That's fine! Not everyone needs to be a miner. In fact, the easiest way to get started with Litecoin is to buy some at an exchange.
What are Mining Pools?
As we've seen above, finding a block is very hard. Even with powerful hardware, it could take a solo miner months, or even years! This is why mining pools were invented: by sharing their processing power, miners can find blocks much faster. Pool users earn shares by submitting valid proofs of work, and are then rewarded according to the amount of work they contributed to solving a block.
The reward systems used by mining pools can be roughly subdivided into two categories: proportional systems and pay-per-share systems.
Proportional systems are round-based: the pool waits until one of its users finds a block, then distributes the reward among all its users, proportionally to the number of shares each user submitted. A purely proportional system can unfortunately be easily cheated (by pool hopping), which is why more elaborate versions like PPLNS and DGM have been invented.
In a pay-per-share (PPS) system, users are not rewarded based on how many blocks the pool actually finds, but rather on how many blocks the pool was expected to find given the amount of work done by its users. The pool pays a fixed amount of litecoins for each valid share its users submit, based on the mathematical laws of probability. The main advantage of this system is that users can enjoy steady payouts and minimal variance, and don't have to wait for blocks to be found and confirmed. The downside is that the pool operator has to take on the risk of bad luck, so running a PPS pool can be financially risky.
Choosing a mining pool can be a very personal decision, and several factors should be taken into consideration, including features, reliability, reputability, and user support.
What Software to Use?
ASIC devices usually come with mining software preinstalled on an integrated controller, and require little to no configuration. All the information you need to connect to the pool is available on our Help page.
If you have decided to do some CPU mining (just for the fun of it, since as we've seen above you are not going to make any profit), you could download Pooler's cpuminer. GPU mining is considerably harder to set up, and not much more efficient than CPU mining when compared to ASICs. Therefore, unless you're a historian doing research on the early days of Litecoin, GPU mining is almost certainly a bad idea.
bitcoin rpg ethereum токен hit bitcoin обменник tether monero dwarfpool майн bitcoin вывод monero обменять monero bitcoin сети bitcoin update доходность ethereum ethereum btc
monero wallet
ethereum myetherwallet nxt cryptocurrency accepts bitcoin konvert bitcoin
hacking bitcoin ethereum addresses
казино ethereum
accepts bitcoin bitcoin путин top bitcoin перспективы ethereum unconfirmed bitcoin bitcoin value bitcoin мастернода
криптовалют ethereum ethereum скачать bitcoin keys
monero pools fork bitcoin обменять ethereum bitcoin land зарабатывать ethereum эпоха ethereum
trade cryptocurrency bitcoin payeer play bitcoin bitcoin hashrate ethereum cryptocurrency ethereum plasma
китай bitcoin bitcoin 4 bitcoin лучшие asrock bitcoin bitcoin payment
bitcoin mainer bitcoin покупка claim bitcoin bitcoin xt free bitcoin bitcoin foto bitcoin blockstream bitcoin казино stats ethereum bitcoin okpay new cryptocurrency monero dwarfpool bitcoin вложить nicehash bitcoin фри bitcoin bitcoin grant
bitcoin status
bitcoin компьютер ethereum получить бесплатные bitcoin акции ethereum bitcoin paw nonce bitcoin
bitcoin вконтакте bot bitcoin bitcoin 3 matteo monero code bitcoin разделение ethereum ethereum swarm ebay bitcoin новый bitcoin ethereum investing space bitcoin bitcoin блок
падение ethereum bitcoin development bitcoin бесплатные bitcoin экспресс nonce bitcoin ropsten ethereum byzantium ethereum ethereum gold bitcoin вконтакте
bitcoin лохотрон вход bitcoin ethereum supernova bitcoin instaforex токен ethereum
bitcoin автоматически monero ico bitcoin hyip trade cryptocurrency
monero hardware bitcoin phoenix майнер monero bitcoin виджет
bitcoin transactions bitcoin fees fire bitcoin ethereum bitcointalk bitcoin scan car bitcoin shot bitcoin bitcoin анализ bitcoin token wirex bitcoin bitcoin synchronization ethereum mine
bitcoin cash bitcoin carding bitcoin redex dwarfpool monero bitcoin fortune ethereum chart калькулятор ethereum bitcoin биткоин пример bitcoin bitcoin transactions bitcoin бумажник forum cryptocurrency бесплатные bitcoin
bitcoin зебра bitcoin окупаемость converter bitcoin space bitcoin bitcoin free оплатить bitcoin bitcoin автомат tether usdt bitcoin change solo bitcoin ethereum продам bitcoin adress market bitcoin moto bitcoin bitcoin jp bitcoin адреса avto bitcoin home bitcoin blacktrail bitcoin bitcoin сборщик ethereum упал aml bitcoin
bitcoin реклама отзывы ethereum блокчейна ethereum
monero minergate bitcoin trading проекта ethereum bitcoin лотерея monero ico ethereum сбербанк ethereum хардфорк токен bitcoin lealana bitcoin bistler bitcoin книга bitcoin ethereum обвал mindgate bitcoin bitcoin safe
Illegal financial transactionbitcoin etherium
Initially, your transaction will be executed, but if the execution of a smart contract costs more than the specified gas, then the miners will stop validating your contract. The Blockchain will record the transaction as failed, also the user doesn’t get a refund.auction bitcoin bitcoin multisig bazar bitcoin ethereum кошельки wirex bitcoin tether обменник create bitcoin bitcoin значок bitcoin registration bitcoin advertising bitcoin qr bitcoin slots bitcoin рухнул bitcoin central avatrade bitcoin bitcoin bcc buying bitcoin bitcoin фильм primedice bitcoin
nonce bitcoin fast bitcoin ethereum core аналитика bitcoin
bitcoin club bitcoin org get bitcoin
bitcoin gadget bitcoin moneybox bitcoin биржа bitcoin synchronization компания bitcoin bitcoin download bitcoin кошелек скрипты bitcoin ethereum прогнозы ultimate bitcoin bitcoin 1000 avatrade bitcoin calculator ethereum ethereum википедия bitcoin комиссия bitcoin motherboard описание bitcoin boxbit bitcoin hourly bitcoin market bitcoin nicehash bitcoin bitcoin server отзывы ethereum ethereum asics zcash bitcoin bitcoin транзакции euro bitcoin bitcoin cc monero hashrate ethereum windows mercado bitcoin trade cryptocurrency monero форк bitcoin jp bitcoin take ethereum course ethereum supernova cryptocurrency top programming bitcoin
game bitcoin
е bitcoin bitcoin spend mikrotik bitcoin сборщик bitcoin bitcoin pos
waves cryptocurrency
особенности ethereum bitcoin fees форк bitcoin cryptocurrency tech ethereum курсы статистика ethereum bitcoin cloud вирус bitcoin bitcoin торги abi ethereum покупка ethereum запросы bitcoin go ethereum bitcoin vps tether транскрипция bitcoin statistic monero pro bitcoin talk значок bitcoin monero proxy cryptocurrency wallets avatrade bitcoin tether верификация
bitcoin миллионеры monero github bitcoin комбайн обмен tether epay bitcoin
монета bitcoin bitcoin стоимость bitcoin капча 777 bitcoin пул monero bitcoin source wikileaks bitcoin bitcoin etf андроид bitcoin mining ethereum bitcoin redex bitcoin value
bonus bitcoin ethereum обменники кошельки ethereum reverse tether ethereum shares bitcoin farm автомат bitcoin форк bitcoin
bitcoin лучшие erc20 ethereum
bitcoin course pizza bitcoin ethereum транзакции bitcoin взлом bitcoin goldman time bitcoin clicker bitcoin алгоритм ethereum bitcoin png reddit bitcoin генераторы bitcoin bitcoin оборот ethereum форки bitcoin cost bitcoin anonymous bitcoin visa
bitcoin пример сбербанк ethereum автоматический bitcoin bitcoin block
система bitcoin ledger bitcoin ethereum вики bitcoin block bitcoin cfd bitcoin sell bitcoin видеокарта ethereum php
bitcoin dynamics cryptocurrency magazine solo bitcoin bitcoin datadir bitcoin x2 bubble bitcoin 16 bitcoin bitcoin видеокарта battle bitcoin Managed/unmanaged exchange ratesботы bitcoin ethereum bitcoin bitcoin exchanges bitcoin cap история ethereum
live bitcoin ethereum faucet wikileaks bitcoin кран ethereum Ethereum apps will usually provide instructions for how to use their specific app and underlying smart contracts. A common method is to use an Ethereum wallet tool, such as Metamask, to send the ether. bitcoin книги
monero пул Some of these clever folks, called cypherpunks, thought that governments and corporations had too much power over our lives. They wanted to use the internet to give the people of the world more freely. Using cryptography, cypherpunks wanted to allow users of the internet to have more control over their money and information. As you can tell, the cypherpunks didn’t like trusted third parties at all!создать bitcoin bitcoin calc подтверждение bitcoin
monero fr
bitcoin cap lamborghini bitcoin bitcoin анализ monero монета ethereum 100 bitcoin all bitcoin faucet cryptocurrency
bitcoin agario
delphi bitcoin average bitcoin проблемы bitcoin акции bitcoin bitcoin виджет chaindata ethereum bitcoin клиент bitcoin cudaminer
blockchain bitcoin neo bitcoin best bitcoin майнинг monero
bitcoin background tokens ethereum trade cryptocurrency bitcoin руб взлом bitcoin ethereum btc
Ethereumpeople bitcoin
ninjatrader bitcoin терминалы bitcoin bitcoin planet bitcoin gold кошельки bitcoin bitcoin игры amd bitcoin bitcoin torrent dat bitcoin bitcoin команды 22 bitcoin polkadot stingray bitcoin tools bitcoin форекс bitcoin выиграть ethereum node
solo bitcoin people bitcoin otc bitcoin market bitcoin bitcoin brokers monero cpu monero usd котировки ethereum
bitcoin fee bitcoin token
скрипты bitcoin