First published 18 April 2020. Expanded in October 2026 so the subsidy, MWEB, and the addresses match the chain as it works now. Litecoin is a public ledger of payments, built in 2011 by copying Bitcoin’s software and starting a new history. LTC is the entry in that history. You can move it if you hold the matching keys. Nobody at the Litecoin Foundation can reverse a confirmed send because the address was wrong. That is the same hard fact as Bitcoin, on a chain with different numbers.
People call it silver because Bitcoin is called gold. That is a slogan. The mechanism is a block time, a hashing function, a supply cap, and an optional privacy lane. What is Bitcoin, in plain language is the longer notebook this one was copied from. This page is the copy, and the ways the copy is not the original.
Where it came from
Charlie Lee announced Litecoin in October 2011. The software was a fork of Bitcoin’s code, not a split of Bitcoin’s chain. A chain split hands existing holders a claim on both tapes. A new genesis does not. If you held bitcoin in 2011, you did not wake up holding litecoin. You had to acquire LTC on its own ledger.
Lee’s aim was a chain that confirmed faster and used a different proof-of-work function, Scrypt, so that the machines then mining Bitcoin would not automatically dominate this one. Scrypt asks for more memory than Bitcoin’s SHA-256. That was a design bet about who could mine. It was not a permanent shield. Specialised Scrypt machines exist. Mining is still a business of electricity and hardware, not a hobby the code can protect forever.
In December 2017 Lee said he had sold his own LTC. That is a founder selling a holding. It did not change the issuance schedule, and it did not put a company in charge of your keys. The Litecoin Foundation maintains software and promotion. It does not issue the coins and it cannot halt a payment the network has already accepted.
How the ledger works
Blocks are aimed at about two and a half minutes, against Bitcoin’s ten. The cap written into the code is 84 million LTC, four times Bitcoin’s 21 million, because the faster clock would otherwise have piled coins up on the same calendar. New LTC is the subsidy paid to whoever adds the next block. That subsidy is cut in half every 840,000 blocks, roughly four years, not on a calendar appointment. If blocks come faster than the target, the cut arrives sooner.
The subsidy started at 50 LTC. It is 6.25 LTC now, from block 2,520,000 on 2 August 2023. The next cut is block 3,360,000, expected around 2027, down to 3.125 LTC. The height is the rule. The date is an estimate. A halving slows new coins. It does not change the LTC you already hold, and it does not instruct you to move them. Anyone who says you must “claim” a halving wants a phrase or a fee.
Fees are a bid to be included, usually small because the blocks are roomier and the traffic is thinner than Bitcoin’s busy hours. Small is not free, and a quiet month is not a promise. On-chain fees are an auction is the general idea. The units here are litoshis, not satoshis and not Ethereum gas.
Dogecoin has, since 2014, been merge-mined with Litecoin. The same Scrypt work can satisfy both chains. A Litecoin halving does not cut Dogecoin’s subsidy. They share a class of machine. They do not share a coin. What is Dogecoin (DOGE)? is the other ledger.
MWEB is a side lane, not the default
In May 2022, at block 2,257,920, Litecoin activated MimbleWimble extension blocks, called MWEB. It is an opt-in extension. You can move LTC into that lane, where the amount is hidden from the public ledger and known to the sender and receiver, and you can move it back. An ordinary LTC send stays on the public chain, with amounts visible, the way Bitcoin transactions are visible. MWEB is not Monero, and it is not “Litecoin is now private.” Exchanges often refuse MWEB deposits. If a deposit page does not say it accepts them, do not send them. A private lane that the recipient cannot see is a lost coin with extra steps.
Addresses, and the wrong city
Legacy Litecoin addresses often start with L. Script addresses often start with M. Bech32 addresses start with ltc1. None of those is a Bitcoin address, even when the characters look cousinly. bc1 is Bitcoin. 0x is an account chain such as Ethereum. A multi-coin wallet will let you pick Litecoin for a Bitcoin deposit and call it a typo after the fact. The wrong network is still the wrong city.
There is no destination tag on a normal Litecoin payment. If a page demands a memo for LTC, read whether you are depositing to an exchange that uses one anyway, or looking at a different asset. Copy the address from the receive screen on the network the page named.
What Litecoin is not
It is not Bitcoin with a different ticker. It is not a token on Ethereum. It is not anonymous by default. It is not a company you can phone, even though a foundation and a founder exist. It is not a store-of-value warranty. The same drawdowns that hit other proof-of-work coins have hit this one. “Digital silver” does not pay a bill.
If you wanted Bitcoin’s security budget and its ten-minute clock, this is a different machine with a smaller mining market. If you wanted a programmable chain, this is the wrong page. Ethereum without the jargon is that machine. Nothing here is an instruction to buy, sell, mine, or move LTC.
