Litecoin Value Soars Due To SegWit Activation

After all, the mining pools got together to pledge SegWit support, effectively locking in the activation threshold. In the world of cryptocurrency, a steep value increase is often met with profit-taking, once things start to get rolling. It appears the same is happening to Litecoin right now, as the price briefly surged to 0.022 BTC. Everyone knew that price point would not be sustainable, and the following sell-off pushed the price back down to the 0.021 mark. It remains to be seen if a further reversal of the price gains will occur, although markets are seemingly stabilizing a bit. Overall, Litecoin is seeing a tremendous influx of trading volume due to the activation of Segregated Witness. It is now second in volume, right behind XRP. If this trend keeps up for a few more hours, Litecoin will overtake XRP for today, though. Interestingly enough, there is about half as much buy support for Litecoin compared to XRP right now, which could hint at some other upcoming market movements. All of this goes to show activating Segregated Witness is about much more than just raising the block size limit. While that latter part is very important to Bitcoin right now, the transaction malleability fix will help the network become more stable as well. Bitcoin’s price has increased gradually these past few weeks, and viec lam implementing SegWit could send the value up even further.

The disadvantage of this higher volume of blocks is that the litecoin blockchain will be proportionately larger than bitcoin's, with more orphaned blocks. The faster block time of litecoin reduces the risk of double spending attacks - this is theoretical in the case of both networks having the same hashing power. A merchant who waited for a minimum of two confirmations would only need to wait five minutes, whereas they would have to wait 10 minutes for just one confirmation with bitcoin. Transaction speed (or faster block time) and confirmation speed are often touted as moot points by many involved in bitcoin, as most merchants would allow zero-confirmation transactions for most purchases. It is necessary to bear in mind that a transaction is instant, it is just confirmed by the network as it propagates. Bitcoin Litecoin image via Flickr. Mining Rig image via Wikipedia. Mining USB devices Image via Shutterstock. Customers may now register their interest on the website. VAT for UK customers. Alpha Technology said both the hashing rates and delivery times quoted were deliberately conservative estimates, and actual shipping should be well underway by Q2-Q3 of 2014. The prices quoted on the product page are the deposit amounts. The machines are standalone, with no need for a host PC. They feature a LCD panel on the enclosure and can be configured with WebGUI via a desktop or mobile device, bringing access to alt-coin mining to less experienced users. While all serious bitcoin mining these days is performed with specially-designed ASIC and FPGA-based chipsets, such technology has eluded other currencies using the scrypt algorithm so far. This is mainly due to the choice of scrypt to deliberately resist these chips due to its intensive use of more expensive memory, keeping mining in the hands of enthusiasts with consumer grade GPU mining hardware for longer. If Alpha Technology and others can deliver their new designs, that could be about to change, though the hashing power required to mine litecoin remains substantially lower than bitcoin.

Add to all of this the recent news about ESEA, a popular game service that served Bitcoin-mining malware to gamers, and it becomes obvious that digital currency is currently a trending topic, among malware writers as well as amongst gamers. Recently we’ve happened upon a new trojan that attempts to steal virtual cash in the form of the alternate digital currency, Litecoin. The trojan, which ESET detects as MSIL/PSW.LiteCoin.A, is extremely unsophisticated. All it does is tries to send the user’s wallet.dat file to an FTP server under the control of the attacker. According to our telemetry, Win32/PSW.LiteCoin.A is not very widespread at the moment, but Litecoin may become a target for attackers as its popularity and userbase increases. This younger peer-to-peer cryptocurrency is based on Bitcoin and offers several improvements. Interestingly, the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt.Gox, announced in April its plans to begin trading Litecoins, but this was put on hold due to DDoS attacks against it: these were also carried out by the Skynet botnet, as mentioned above.

While Bitcoin equally of right away drives the digital money advertise equally far equally appropriation in addition to marketplace top, approximately debate that other, fresher cryptos are actually a superior venture. Once proposed elective is Litecoin. In approximately cases alluded to equally the "silver Bitcoin," this altcoin could demonstrate predominant inwards thought of 4 components. In the commencement place, Litecoin’s calculation is far to a greater extent than straightforward than Bitcoin’s, which makes it simpler to operate along running on designs treatment units (GPUs). This outcomes inwards a lower obstacle to department for Litecoin excavators inwards contrast amongst Bitcoin. Second, Litecoin has a speedier slice era speed. Preparing a Litecoin slice takes to a greater extent than than 2 minutes instead of Bitcoin’s 10. This reductions central charges, making the Litecoin digital money to a greater extent than alluring to speculators. Third, Litecoin is going to dispatch a "lightning system" that volition heighten its effectively meliorate capacity than conform to changes. This organisation volition larn inwards less demanding for Litecoin to scale equally it acquires footing. Fourth, Litecoin’s lifetime overstep is higher than Bitcoin’s (84 1000000 coins instead of 24 million). When this overstep is achieved, diggers volition never in ane lawsuit to a greater extent than endure a slice of the procedure, in addition to this could diminish the safety in addition to solidness of the blockchain supporting every cash. While digital forms of money when all is said inwards done are expanding inwards prominence, the private variations are continually competing for advertise predominance.

The fact that Litecoin has been around for over five years now, shows the strength it has as well as its longevity. There have been plenty of pump-and-dump coins but Litecoin has stayed the course. Investing in Litecoin is surely a solid one. There is still room for growth and the steady technological base offers that platform for growth. It's ability to identify and address some of Bitcoins issues also gives it scope to be a real competitor in the future. Given we have begun speaking about Litecoin’s future, this opens up the future of cryptocurrencies debate. Is there a future? If so, is there still room for them to row? To answer these questions, it is important to understand cryptocurrencies and the technology behind them. The majority of cryptocurrencies use blockchains, the strength of this technology has been identified and its value has essentially been quantified in the value of their tokens. But the question is that that among the other 99 cryptocurrencies, which ones are safer to invest in? If Bitcoin is considered as gold, Litecoin is its silver. Litecoin is also often termed as the smaller brother to Bitcoin, as the currency is based on the same cryptographic peer-to-peer protocol as that of the latter. Litecoin although differs with Bitcoins in terms of technical specifications, especially when one speaks of mining. Unlike Bitcoins, its silver currency is mined and generated faster by using the unused computing power of the graphic cards. It also produces one block per 2.5 minute, which is quite lower than the Bitcoin’ 10 minutes. For its ability to fulfill the loopholes of Bitcoins, Litecoin can be your number one choice for making an investment into an altcurreny. Exceptional in its kind, Ripple, in fact, is not just a cryptocurrency, but an ecosystem consisting of a monetary and financial system. Moreover, it is one of the few currencies whose operations are not based on the Bitcoin’s algorithm (or a derivative thereof).