Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee. It was created based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used. Litecoin uses the memory intensive Scrypt proof of work mining algorithm. Scrypt allows consumer-grade hardware such as GPU to mine those coins. Why Litecoin? Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that has evolved from Bitcoin after its own popularity in the industry, this alternative, or ‘altcoin’ has emerged to allow investors to diversify their digital currency package, according to Investopedia. Litecoin is one of the most prominent altcoins and was created by former Google employee and Director of Engineering at Coinbase, Charlie Lee. Litecoin was the first to alter Bitcoin and the most significant difference is that it takes 2.5 minutes for Litecoin to generate a block, or transaction, in comparison to Bitcoin's 10 minutes. ‘While this matters little to traders, miners who use hardware to run Bitcoin's network cannot switch over to Litecoin. This keeps bigger mining conglomerates away from Litecoin because they cannot easily optimize their profits by swapping to another coin, contributing to a more decentralized experience. Litecoin also has bigger blocks, and more coins in circulation, making it more affordable and swift when transacting,’ Investopedia explained. As explained above, Litecoin can transact a lot faster than Bitcoin, but there are also a number of other characteristics that investors need to know before trading. Litecoin can handle higher volumes of transactions because of the capability of transacting faster and if Bitcoin attempted to transact on the scale of its altcoin, a code update would be needed. However, Litecoin’s blocks would be larger, but 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. Litecoin Technical Details: The transaction confirmation time taken for Litecoin is about 2.5 minutes on average (as compared to Bitcoin's 10 minutes). The Litecoin network is scheduled to cap at 84 million currency units. Litecoin has inspired many other popular alternative currencies (eg. Dogecoin) because of its Scrypt hashing algorithm in order to prevent ASIC miners from mining those coins. However it is said that by the end of this year, Scrypt ASIC will enter the mass market.
PIVX stands for Private Instant Verified Transaction. PIVX is an MIT licensed anonymity-based cryptocurrency created out of a fork of DASH. PIVX is an open source blockchain-based Proof of Stake cryptocurrency with Zerocoin protocol implementation for industry leading transaction privacy. PIVX project is focused on advancing its privacy technology to ensure fungibility, improve network scalability and increase real-world utilization to become an effective decentralized online digital currency for everyone. PIVX inherited all the technical features of DASH such as masternodes, instant send and private transfer. It has a block time of 60 seconds and has a fixed reward size per block that uses a custom Seesaw Algorithm that dynamically alters the reward split between masternode and staking nodes. PIVX also utilizes a decentralized network of masternodes that allow feature services, treasury management, and community governance. The project is focused on advancing its privacy technology to ensure fungibility, improving network scalability, and increasing real-world utilization to become a globally-accepted decentralized online digital currency. PIVX is the first cryptocurrency to implement a directly spendable Zerocoin protocol and has also developed and implemented an industry-first Zerocoin-capable Proof of Stake consensus algorithm, called zPoS, that allows complete privacy of the balance and transactions while staking. PIVX “wallet” software closely resembles running your own bank, while basecoin (PIV) for transparent transactions and Zerocoin (zPIV) for completely anonymous, untraceable transactions. PIVX is an advanced privacy-enabled proof-of-stake cryptocurrency using the Zerocoin Protocol, an advanced zero-knowledge-proof privacy protocol for utmost transaction anonymity, and zPoS, a world’s first privacy-enabled Proof of Stake technology all developed by a team of highly experienced developers and cryptographers. Here at PIVX, we wanted to do something innovative, so we brought this cutting-edge technology to life. PIVX is available to be purchased directly with some popular fiat currencies. Here are some exchanges that provide the option to buy PIVX with currencies (USD, EUR etc.) UpBit, Coinroom, LiteBit. The PIVX network allows for 2.6 million PIVX tokens to be minted per year forever, with 90% of the minted coins going to staking wallets and Masternodes (staking is covered in the next section), and 10% going to fund budget proposals voted on by the Masternodes and stakers. This lack of a maximum coin supply makes PIVX function similar to a traditional currency, as inflation is introduced to the system to encourage daily usage and avoid hoarding. The inflation is around 4% per year, but instead of simply devaluing your currency like the Fed does when it prints Dollars, all those minted coins are going directly to holders of PIVX, offsetting the effect of inflation by spreading the profits. PIVX is a promising privacy coin aiming to be an easy-to-use digital cash replacement. There have been a few hiccups surrounding the implementation of the privacy technology, but the community and development team are active, engaged, and optimistic. It’s performing well on the market, with high volume and support from major exchanges (most notably Bittrex) and looks like it’ll be around for a while.'