Steemit Crypto Academy Season 2, Week 1|Homework Post for @yohan2on

Thank you @yohan2on for the lesson.

Let first look into what altcoin is?
"Alt" and "coin" are what made up of the word Altcoin. In which Alt stands for Alternative means replacement, This is an alternative currency.
So what is it to replace? It is a replacement for Bitcoin.
Altcoin is also known as the generic name for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoins.

Talking of Litecoin
Litecoin is a popular cryptocurrency, which ranks 9th in terms of capitalization among all digital coins, according to coinranking.com. At the end of October 2018, its trading volume is $ 3,079,505,643, and this figure continues to grow.
Litecoin developers have created a blockchain-based network in which users can exchange funds anonymously and securely. Yes, now everyone knows about such a system. But at the time of Litecoin's creation, the development was innovative.

The history behind the development of the coin

Litecoin was launched back in 2011. The bitcoin code was taken as a basis. However, the most popular cryptocurrency has a number of shortcomings, which the Litecoin developers tried to eliminate.
The idea of ​​creating a coin came to the head of Charles Lee, one of the programmers at Google. Already in 2013, this cryptocurrency was considered the main analog of bitcoin.

Many users accepted the news of the creation of a competitor to Bitcoin with joy: this allowed for a somewhat renewed market and created a healthy competitive environment in the field of cryptocurrencies.

In 2016, the coin became the second-largest by capitalization among all-digital money. The coin has been nicknamed "digital silver." However, already in 2017, the complexity of mining cryptocurrency increased (due to the influx of miners to the market), and the reward for generating blocks, on the contrary, decreased. This invariably led to a decrease in user interest in Litecoin - the coin fell to the 4th position in terms of capitalization among competitors. In 2018, it slowly yielded places in the ranking to other cryptocurrencies and now occupies the 7th position.

picture credit to pexels

Main features of Litecoin
Well, first, let's pay attention to the main advantages of this cryptocurrency:

1. Decentralization. The blockchain on which the cryptocurrency is based assumes that all network participants are equal. That is, the system does not have a single center that is an intermediary: all operations are carried out directly between users;
2. Anonymity. All personal data of users who work in the Litecoin network are hidden;
3. Transparency. Despite the fact that personal information is hidden, the history of all transactions is stored in the blockchain itself and cannot be deleted or changed;
4. Availability. You can use this monetary system at any time and in any place - regardless of the country of residence. The only condition is the presence of an Internet connection;
5. Deflation. Since it is only possible to mine a certain amount of coins, there will be no opportunity to mine coins at a certain point. This means that the value of Litecoin will naturally grow, since with an increase in demand, there will be no option for generating new coins;
6. Open source. The developers of the coin offer everyone to use the Litecoin code and, in accordance with the MIT / X11 license, users can change and transform the code for any personal projects.

You can say that similar benefits can be found with Bitcoin. However, Litecoin has a number of advantages over its predecessor:

1. Large emission. The number of Litecoin coins that can be mined is 80 million. Moreover, ¾ of the total volume will be mined by 2020;
2. Block formation speed. In order to create a new Litecoin block (with 25 coins in it), you need to spend only 2.5 minutes (in the Bitcoin network, for example, it will take 4 times more time to generate a new block);
3. Security of transactions. Due to the faster transfer speed, all Litecoin transactions are very difficult to track. This avoids hacker attacks.

Mining Litecoin
The developers of the coin, of course, have foreseen the possibility of mining coins. For this, the Proof Of Work algorithm was used, as well as the circular hashing algorithm. This means that users will need to find a certain hash value for the block header, which will be equal to (or less than) the specified value in the system. If the value exceeds the specified value, the mining attempt fails.
The reward for the generation is received by the user who has formed a new block in the chain.

Note that when mining Litecoin, the computer's RAM is mainly used (as opposed to Bitcoin mining, where the GPU is more important).

What are the prospects for the Litecoin coin?
I can not make accurate predictions because anything can happen in the cryptocurrency market. But, judging by the past of this coin, it has every chance of increasing in price already in 2021. There are several reasons for this:

1. The developed system itself is multifunctional and time-tested. A secure, anonymous, and fast option for making transactions has been tried millions of times;
2. User confidence. This coin is known to everyone, has a reputation for being stable and valuable in the coin market;
3. During its existence, the Litecoin rate has sharply increased in price several times. This might possibly happen again in the near future;
4. Deflation will push the price up. The closer the moment when these coins cannot be mined, the more their value will increase.

However, there are some negative indicators that do not promise a good future for Litecoin:

1. The moment will soon come when the reward for mining a block in the Litecoin network will be halved. This will invariably lead to a decrease in the value of the coin;
2. More and more projects appear on the market today that offer much better conditions for working with cryptocurrency assets. This is evidenced by the slow decline of Litecoin in the world ranking by capitalization.