Litecoin Mining

As all of you are probably aware by now, mining is one of the pillars of cryptocurrency trading. You’ve also probably already heard of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that introduced blockchain technology and this kind of mining in 2009. It might be the most famous one, but it is certainly not the only cryptocurrency produced and reproduced by mining. Some of them, such as Litecoin, use more sophisticated mining hardware and software that could show more sustainable results. That’s why we decided to write this article, to show you what other coins have to offers. So, if you want to learn more, stay with us and see what the possibilities are.

Alternatives to Bitcoin

The term altcoin is used to signify all other cryptocurrencies (alternatives to Bitcoin) such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Siacoin etc. Terms such as altcoin mining calculator and altcoin mining pool signify the tools used by miners to support cryptocurrency exchange and trading within the blockchains. In this article, however, we will be primarily focusing on Litecoin mining.

For those of you who are interested in investing or just collecting information about profitability, we will explain the most important terms such as Litecoin mining pool, Litecoin mining calculator, Litecoin mining rig and cloud by focusing on the practical aspect of mining and by using examples from users’ experience and results of market research.

Transaction speed is the key difference between Bitcoin and Litecoin because the latter processes its transactions much faster. Another difference is the number of coins. While Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins, Litecoin’s limit is 84 million coins.
Similar to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin also doesn’t have any institutional central issuer and the exchange is controlled by the users in the network. In order to have some influence, users can join Litecoin mining pools. Securing the transfers is the most important role of the network of miners. They assemble transactions into blocks and those blocks build up the blockchain.

Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin mining software uses proof-of-work exchange mechanism. Transactions are included in the blocks and verified after that. If there are no double payments, a transaction is added to one of the blockchains.

What do you need to do to mine Litecoin?

Litecoin blockchain is stronger than Bitcoin’s because it generates the blocks about four times faster than Bitcoin. The growth rate of the network is good, and the miners are rewarded by 25 new Litecoins per block. There will only ever be 84 million of Litecoins, so you don’t have to worry about decreasing the value based on inflation. This site also offers information about the global network of users, forums, and other social media.

After creating an account with your username and password and before you start mining, you will need to get your wallet. Litecoin mining software secures your wallet by encrypting it, and you will have to enter your user credentials every time you wish to use your coins for payments.

Litecoin mining pool is the name of the platform that gathers users within a certain network.  Technology is comparable to Ethereum smart contracts. The pool waits for the user to find a block. After the block is gathered, the pool distributes the reward within the network. The reward depends on the number of shares that each user submitted.  Share does not have any real value. It is only a trust-building mechanism among the miners. If you are mining on your own (without joining a pool), there is no need to track the number of shares. The hash that has a value is the one that solves the block. Litecoin’s hashing algorithms are different than Bitcoin’s. Bitcoin uses SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) and Litecoin uses memory algorithm called Scrypt.

Litecoin Mining Rig

Litecoin mining software and hardware

In order to start mining, you will have to install the software. CPU miners or GPU miners are your options, but we recommend going with a Litecoin mining GPU. After downloading the version that is designed for your operating system and setting up your Litecoin mining software, you will write a script and supervise your miner by scrolling through the command lines. This is the command line (at cmd.exe:) that will let you start mining:

c:ltcminerminerd -a scrypt -r 1 -t 4 -s 6 -o -O <login>:<password>

Litecoin mining is done by hardware which also plays an important role in securing the network of users and generates new coins to reward the miners. The proof of work function used by Litecoin’s miners is different than the one used for Bitcoin, which means that Bitcoin’s miners cannot mine Litecoins.

Most resources refer to Antminer L3+ as the best Litecoin mining hardware. It mines at 504 MH/s, consumes 1.6 Joules per Megahash (MH/s) and comes with a 180-day warranty. Those specifications make it the most powerful Litecoin miner at the moment.

Other tools

To build up your own Litecoin mining rig, you will need adequate Litecoin mining hardware and software for your operating system. You will also have to work on the mining script and join pools. Another option is to use services provided by a Litecoin cloud mining company. It is a framework that allows you to do the mining supported by the hosting platform after creating a contract.

Litecoin mining calculator is an important tool that lets you calculate the profitability of your transactions. It is updated instantly and follows the estimation based on the networks’ hash rate and exchange rate. If you are new to the cryptocurrency mining, you will find Litecoin mining calculator especially useful.

Litecoin Mining Profitability Calculator

In case that you have your own Litecoin mining rig, you will put in the hardware costs and electricity (power) costs in different fields in the Litecoin mining calculator. After that, you will click “calculate” and get the profitability rate for your area. If you use services available in Litecoin cloud mining, you will get your calculation after simply entering the cost of the contract.

Conclusion

Litecoin is a decentralized online currency created in 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee. The aim was to create “silver” for Bitcoin’s “gold”, but also to provide improved alternative to Bitcoin by using more effective technology, faster rate of coin production with more sophisticated hashing algorithms. As any other application of the blockchain technology on the cryptocurrency market, Litecoin is open source, global payment network. It doesn’t have any central issuer and it supports multi-purpose global payments. Because of the peer to peer exchange, based on the blockchain verification, transaction fees are considerably less than those made by traditional bank transfers. The popularity of the Litecoin mining pools as platforms for different sorts of payments and investments is constantly rising. It is not difficult to conclude that this cryptocurrency will have important role in the future development of global commerce. If you want to participate, check out our other articles and see where to trade this interesting coin.

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