1. What is Litecoin (LTC)?
Litecoin (LTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency powered by the Scrypt Proof-of-Work algorithm. The project aims to provide an alternative to Bitcoin by making modifications to the original Bitcoin Protocol.
A Proof-of-Work algorithm creates a computational challenge to be solved by the network of computers in order to verify a block of transactions. The Scrypt algorithm was developed in 2009 by Colin Percival (Tarsnap Inc.). In contrast with Bitcoin’s SHA-256d, it serves to inhibit hardware scalability by requiring a significant amount of memory when performing its calculations.
This change aimed to reduce the efficiency gain and economic incentive to develop custom hardware such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (“ASIC”). While this initially prevented ASIC mining, new machines have been more performant than GPU mining, leading to most of LTC mining activities being conducted by ASIC machines (e.g., Antminer L3+).
Litecoin has an average block time of 2.5 minutes, and a total supply of 84 million. The short block time inevitably leads to an increase in orphaned blocks.
Besides total supply and block time, other Bitcoin parameters have remained largely unchanged. For instance, the number of blocks between difficulty changes1 and the target number of years between block reward halving on Litecoin (4 years) remains the same as those on the Bitcoin protocol.
Unlike public blockchain infrastructures supporting the development of decentralized applications, such as Ethereum, Litecoin is primarily used only as a currency and does not support smart contracts.
2. Litecoin’s key features
Core concepts of Bitcoin, blockchains, and the Nakamoto consensus are not discussed in this report. Please read our report about Bitcoin (BTC) (section “core features”). For a beginner introduction to Bitcoin and blockchains, please visit Binance Academy’s mega-guide to Bitcoin.
Segregated Witness (shared with Bitcoin)
Segregated Witness (often abbreviated to SegWit) is a protocol upgrade proposal that went live in May 20172 for Litecoin (vs. August 2017 for Bitcoin).It separates witness signatures from transaction-related data. Witness signatures in “legacy Bitcoin blocks” often take more than 50% of the block size. By removing witness signatures from the transaction block, this protocol effectively increases the number of transactions that can be stored in a single block, rendering the network capable of handling more transactions per second. As a result, SegWit increases the scalability of Nakamoto consensus-based blockchain networks Litecoin.SegWit also makes transactions cheaper. Since transaction fees are derived from how much data is being processed by the block producer, the more transactions that can be stored in a 1MB block, the cheaper individual transactions become.
The legacy Bitcoin block has a block size limit of 1 megabyte, and any change on the block size would require a network hard-fork. On August 1st 2017, the first chain split occurred, leading to the creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which introduced an 8 megabyte limit per block.Conversely, Segregated Witness was a soft-fork: it never changed the transaction block-size limit of the network. Instead, it has added an extended block with an upper limit of 3 megabytes, which contains solely witness signatures, to the 1-megabyte block that contains only transaction data. This new block type can be processed even by nodes that have not completed this protocol upgrade.Furthermore, the separation of witness signatures from transaction data solves the malleability issue of blockchains using the Nakamoto consensus. Without Segregated Witness, these signatures could be altered before the block is validated by miners. Indeed, alterations can be done in such a way that if the system does a mathematical check, the signature would still be valid. However, since the values in the signature are changed, the two signatures would create vastly different hash values.For instance, if a witness signature states “6,” it has a mathematical value of 6, and would create a hash value of 12345. However, if the witness signature were changed to “06”, it would maintain a mathematical value of 6 while creating a (faulty) hash value of 67890.Since the mathematical values are the same, the altered signature remains a valid signature. Hence, this would create a bookkeeping issue, as transactions in Nakamoto consensus-based blockchain networks are documented with these hash values or transaction IDs. Effectively, one can alter a transaction ID to a new one, and the new ID can still be valid.This can create many issues as illustrated below:
Alice sends Bob 1 BTC, and Bob sends Merchant Carol this 1 BTC for some goods.
Bob sends Carols this 1 BTC, while the transaction from Alice to Bob is not yet validated. Carol sees this incoming transaction of 1 BTC to him, and immediately ships goods to B.
At the moment, the transaction from Alice to Bob is still not confirmed by the network, and Bob can change the witness signature, therefore changing this transaction ID from 12345 to 67890.
Now Carol will not receive his 1 BTC, as the network looks for transaction 12345 to ensure that Bob’s wallet balance is valid.
As this particular transaction ID changed from 12345 to 67890 the network will not be able to find this. The transaction from Bob to Carol will fail, and Bob gets his goods while still holding his BTC.
With the Segregated Witness update, such instances can not happen again. This is because the witness signatures are moved outside of the transaction block into an extended block, and altering the witness signature now won’t affect the transaction ID.Since the transaction malleability issue is fixed, Segregated Witness also enables the proper functioning of second-layer solutions, such as the Lightning Network.
Lightning Network (shared with Bitcoin)
Lightning Network is a micropayment solution based on the Bitcoin protocol. It aims to enable near-instant and low-cost payments between merchants and customers that use Bitcoin.Specifically, Lightning Network aims to enable near-instant and low-cost payments between merchants and customers that wish to use bitcoins.Lightning Network was conceptualized in a whitepaper by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015. Since then, it has been implemented by multiple companies. The most prominent of them include Blockstream, Lightning Labs, and ACINQ.For a list of curated resources relevant to Lightning Network, please visit this link.In the Lightning Network, if a customer wishes to transact with a merchant, both of them need to open a payment channel, which operates off the Bitcoin blockchain (i.e., off-chain vs. on-chain). None of the transaction details from this payment channel are recorded on the blockchain. Hence, only when the channel is closed will the end result of both party’s wallet balances be updated to the blockchain. The blockchain only serves as a settlement layer for Lightning transactions.Since all transactions done via the payment channel are conducted independently of the Nakamoto consensus, both parties involved in transactions do not need to wait for network confirmation on transactions. Instead, transacting parties would pay transaction fees to Bitcoin miners only when they decide to close the channel.
One limitation to the Lightning Network is that it requires a person to be online in order for him to receive transactions attributing towards him. Another limitation in user experience could be that one needs to lock up some funds every time he wishes to open a payment channel, and is only able to use that fund within the channel.However, this does not mean he needs to create new channels every time he wishes to transact with a different person on the Lightning Network. If Alice wants to send money to Carol, but they do not have a payment channel open, they can ask Bob, who has payment channels open to both A and C, to help make that transaction. Alice will be able to send funds to Bob, and Bob to Carol. Hence, the number of “payment hubs” (i.e., Bob in the previous example) correlates with both the convenience and the usability of the Lightning Network for real-world applications.
MimbleWimble as a privacy feature (in implementation)
MimbleWimble is a data storage and transaction structure that aims to enhance privacy and fungibility while reducing network bloating and improving scalability. The Mimblewimble design was introduced in 2016 by pseudonymous Tom Elvis Jedusor. As of April 2020, MimbleWimble’s main stand-alone implementations are Grin (GRIN) and Beam (BEAM).MimbleWimble is based on the UTXO model. However, in MimbleWimble there are no addresses, and UTXO values are encrypted by the "blinding factors". Blinding factors are private keys which are only known to the UTXO owner. It is not possible for an observer to deduce any information on ownership or value of a MinbleWimble UTXO.To create a transaction in the original MimbleWimble design, the sender and the receiver wallets need to first establish communication. Once the communication is established, the sender provides the transaction inputs, and both sender and receiver create their respective outputs with range proofs attesting that the values are non-negative. Both parties sign the transaction before sending out to the nodes.Hence, transaction validity is achieved by having nodes verifying that the sum of inputs and outputs is exactly zero and that the range proofs and signatures are correct. Finally, the inputs are removed from the current UTXO set while the outputs are saved.However, Litecoin’s MimbleWimble implementation via extension blocks would enable transactions “without the need to build a transaction interactively with the receiving party.” Specifically, Litecoin aims to achieve a similar result with Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange.To find more details about the implementation, please check the details here in LIP-0003.
3. Economics and supply distribution
Litecoin utilizes the Nakamoto consensus, and nodes validate blocks via Proof-of-Work mining.Litecoin was not pre-mined, and has a maximum supply of 84 million, exactly 4 times that of Bitcoin. The initial reward for a block is 50 litecoins, and halves every 840,000 blocks. Since the target time for block production on the Litecoin blockchain is 2.5 minutes, it implies that Litecoin block reward halving will take place every 4 years.
4. Project team
Litecoin’s development was initiated by Charlie Lee, and has been maintained by core developers and contributors from the community.All development activities can be found here.In addition, the Litecoin Foundation is actively involved in the development and the promotion of Litecoin use-cases across the globe.
bitcoin открыть ethereum платформа ethereum russia bitcoin adress майнить bitcoin tether bitcointalk 'Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy. Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography… We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor. We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do. We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.'Cold storage is an offline wallet used for storing bitcoins. With cold storage, the digital wallet is stored on a platform that is not connected to the internet, thereby protecting the wallet from unauthorized access, cyber hacks and other vulnerabilities to which a system that is connected to the internet is susceptible.ethereum habrahabr So those are the details of Bitcoin as a currency unit, but Bitcoin is also a payment network. As a payment network, Bitcoin replaces the function of banks (especially the Federal Reserve as money creation is not at the whim of any person nor group), inter-bank funding networks (like SWIFT and SEPA), payment processors (like PayPal) and remitters (such as Western Union). The entirety of these massive industries as they relate to the creation, storage, accounting, and transfer of money has been usurped by Bitcoin. If Bitcoin succeeds, it is likely that PayPal and Western Union would be removed from the marketplace. The Federal Reserve (and every central bank) would be made redundant. 'Disruptive technology' is thus an understatement.bitcoin community The result of bitcoin mining is twofold. First, when computers solve these complex math problems on the bitcoin network, they produce new bitcoin (not unlike when a mining operation extracts gold from the ground). And second, by solving computational math problems, bitcoin miners make the bitcoin payment network trustworthy and secure by verifying its transaction information.bitcoin satoshi George owes 10 USD to both Michael and Jackson. Unfortunately, George only has 10 USD in his account. He decides to try to send 10 USD to Michael and 10 USD to Jackson at the same time. The bank’s staff notice that George is trying to send money that he doesn’t have. They stop the transaction from happening.bitcoin hacker monero address fee bitcoin today bitcoin nxt cryptocurrency