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.
Our project is called the 'XY Oracle Network' (XYO Network). The XYO Network enables trustless transactions through an ecosystem of crypto-location components that can bridge the gap from the world of today, to the world of tomorrow. The XYO Network makes it possible for smart contracts to access the real world by using the XYO Network's ecosystem of devices to determine if an object is at a specific XY-coordinate. If it is, one can set up applications which execute transactions in the smart contract. This has opened up a new world of possibilities. The applications of such a technology are infinite. Take for example an eCommerce Company. With the XYO Network, they could now offer their premium customers payment-upon-delivery services. To be able to offer this service, the eCommerce company would leverage the XYO Network (which uses XYO Tokens) to write a smart contract. The XYO Network could then track the location of the package being sent to the consumer along every single step of fulfillment; from the warehouse shelf to the shipping courier, all the way into the consumer's house and every location in between. This could enable eCommerce retailers and websites to verify, in a trustless way, that the package not only appeared on the customer's doorstep, but also safely inside their home.