Litecoin is a fork from bitcoin code with similar protocol.
Litecoin was announced in 2011 with the goal of being the 'silver' to bitcoin's 'gold
A glance difference :
The main difference is that litecoin can confirm transactions must faster than bitcoin. The implications of that are as follows:
- Litecoin can handle a higher volume of transactions thanks to its faster block generation. If bitcoin were to try to match this, it would require significant updates to the code that everyone on the bitcoin network is currently running.
- The disadvantage of this higher volume of blocks is that the litecoin blockchain will be proportionately larger than bitcoin's, 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.
- A merchant who waited for a minimum of two confirmations would only need to wait five minutes, whereas they would have to wait 10 minutes for just one confirmation with bitcoin.