In recent weeks, the world of Cryptourrency has focused on the issue of the Bitcoin ETF, a theme that, with BAKKT’s introduction, has been further driven since its platform is much like that of this family of financial instruments.
However, if BTC appears to be a winning investment tool, will it be used as a payment method? The possible fight between LTC and BTC seems to be a clash between close relatives...
Recently, Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, in fact, confirmed that his idea had been inspired by his older brother, Bobby Lee, and explained that, according to him, BTC, together with ETH and its creation are the general trend indicators of the Cryptourrency market.
From a technological point of view, their fundamental difference lies in the cryptographic algorithms they employ. Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm, while Litecoin uses a relatively new algorithm known as Scrypt.
This difference has a direct consequence in the new currencies extraction process, as well as extraction time: 2.5 minutes for LTC against 10 minutes for BTC. At the same time, the introduction of the 0.17 LTC update will drastically reduce transaction costs.
Lightning Network wants to improve BTC's scalability, but it is a new structure, which will be built almost from scratch, with a minimum capacity that does not permit to exceed the one-million-dollar ceiling (peak) (currently they hardly go above 700 000 dollars). Even now, the number of LTC’s transactions are much lower than those of BTC.
Litecoin much more centralized
To be precise, Bitcoins’ transactions are approximately 260,000 within 24 hours while those of Litecoin are 24000. In addition, the Litecoin market is much more subtle than the Bitcoin, in fact, 36.43 times less than the "digital gold ".
But, without the implementation of the new software, Litecoin has a very low transaction commission value:
The cost of an average Litecoin transaction is about one tenth of the equivalent value for Bitcoin, and the difference will increase.
Unfortunately, Litecoin’s concentration is much greater than that of Bitcoin. In fact, if we consider the quantities managed by the main wallets, we have:
Litecoin
The first 10 wallets have 13.97%.
The first 100 wallets have 44.53%.
The first 1000 wallets have 62.50%.
Bitcoin
The first 10 wallets have a 5.38%.
The first 100 wallets have 18.95%.
The first 1000 wallets have a 35.86%.
This means that Litecoin holders are much more centralized and therefore more prone to price fluctuations if a big investor decides to sell.
It should be mentioned that LTC owners seems to be very interested in long-term investment while waiting for the network to grow and develop more.
Every day there is news about the use of Litecoin as a payment instrument, for example, Litecoin recently joined the jewelers of the Marks Jewelers’ chain, or just a few days ago, Wirex announced his prepaid card also linked to the Litecoin purse.
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