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Layer 1

Litecoin

Bitcoin's older sibling project, tuned for faster and cheaper payments.

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By the Orca Crypto teamUpdated 2026-09-28How we check this5 min readReference
The short answer

Bitcoin's older sibling project, tuned for faster and cheaper payments. Litecoin has run since 2011 with almost no drama. Blocks come four times faster than Bitcoin and fees stay tiny.

Live market data

LiveCoinGecko
Price
$67.97
-4.19% 24h
Market cap
$5.28B
24h volume
$616.30M
Rank
#25
All time high
$410.26

Prices as of September 29, 2026, replaced by live figures as the page loads. Prices move constantly and are for orientation only.

What Litecoin is for

Litecoin has run since 2011 with almost no drama. Blocks come four times faster than Bitcoin and fees stay tiny.

Technical summary

PropertyValue
LayerLayer 1
Launched2011
ConsensusProof of work with Scrypt
ThroughputAbout 56
FinalityAbout 15 minutes
Native tokenLTC pays fees and rewards miners

Block explorers

An explorer lets you verify any transaction, address or contract on this network yourself. Learning to read one is the fastest way to stop taking anyone's word for anything.

How to read a block explorer

Wallets that support it

What to be aware of

  • Validator concentration varies widely between layer 1s and is worth checking rather than assuming.
  • Newer chains have shorter track records under real adversarial pressure.
  • Crypto assets are volatile. Drawdowns of seventy percent or more have happened on every network in this list, including the largest.
  • Sending to an address on the wrong network can lose funds permanently. Always send a small test amount first.

Nothing on this page is investment advice. We describe how networks work, not whether you should buy anything.

Other networks at this layer

Same job, different tradeoffs. Each of these has its own page covering what it is actually for, who runs it and where it struggles.

Common questions

What is Litecoin actually for now?
It has settled into being a fast, cheap, well tested payment coin with a long uninterrupted record. It was also historically a testing ground for changes later adopted by Bitcoin.
Is Litecoin a fork of Bitcoin?
It is based on Bitcoin's code with different parameters: faster blocks, a larger supply cap and a different mining algorithm. It launched separately in 2011 rather than splitting off a shared chain.

Where to go next

New to Litecoin?

We can get you set up with the right wallet, funded, and through a first transaction on this network in about an hour, on a screen share.

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