When Litecoin was created in 2011, it wasn’t as popular as Bitcoin was. Now, Litecoin has carved out a niche for itself.
Former Google employee Charles Lee created Litecoin in 2011. Litecoin has the same general idea as Bitcoin but changed a very important thing – transaction time. The block time is 2.5 minutes compared to 10 minutes that it takes for Bitcoin. The mining algorithm is also different. Bitcoin uses SHA-256 and Litecoin uses Scrypt. The number of available Litecoins is 84 million as opposed to Bitcoin’s 21 million.
If Bitcoin is digital gold, Litecoin is digital silver. Litecoin is faster, cheaper and more abundant.
Now, let’s talk about buying Litecoin.
- Get a Litecoin wallet: Before you decide to buy Litecoins, you will need a wallet. There are many options available but hardware wallets are considered to be the best and safest. Ledger, Trezor, Exodus, and EdgeWallet are some of the best options in both hardware and software. But, if you are not ready to spend any money on hardware wallets, you should go for software wallets that are free. Exodus and Edge are the best options.
- Locate your Litecoin address: This is the crucial step. This is a long string of letters and numbers starting with 3 or M or L.
- Find a good crypto exchange: Exchanges like CoinSwitch help you get the best exchange rates, use fiat currencies to purchase Liteocin. You can even buy Litecoin with credit card on CoinSwitch. There are many other exchanges as well like in Australia, Canada where you can buy Litecoin easily.
- Buying Litecoin with Bitcoin: If you already have Bitcoin, you can perform a BTC to LTC exchange on CoinSwitch and get the best rates. CoinSwitch aggregates all the exchange rates from around the world to offer you the best. Since it has minimal trading fees and 45,000 pairs to trade, this is the best exchange for you to buy Litecoin.
- Buy Litecoin with PayPal: There aren’t a ton of exchanges that support PayPal to begin with so you may find it difficult to find an exchange that allows you to buy Litecoin directly but you can use LocalBitcoins and buy Bitcoin first and convert that to Litecoin.
- Buy Litecoin with fiat currencies: Plenty of exchanges allow you to purchase Litecoin using USD or your local currency. You can start buying Litecoin if your exchange supports this.
- Buy Litecoin from the app: If you use a software wallet or a mobile app, you may find that there are integrated exchanges within the wallet or app that allow you to buy Litecoin instantly.
While cryptocurrency is legal in most countries, some countries like China have outright banned holding, selling or buying it. China has even banned mining of crypto. Check the local laws in your country before you set out to buy Litecoin.
