Litecoin was created by Charles Lee, a former Google employee and MIT graduate on October 7, 2011. Bitcoin had already been around for a couple of years and one of the major limitations of the new cryptocurrency was the fact that it took up to 10 minutes to validate any transaction. In an age of instant payments, this seemed like a major shortcoming. Litecoin blocks were designed to improve on this significantly and they certainly seem to have done so with a block generation time of only 2 ½ minutes.

Speedier production of Litecoin blocks has made the technology more attractive and helped to boost Litecoin’s market capitalization, which has hit $2.5 billion according to Coinmarket.com. No doubt the quicker block generation time has added to the popularity of the currency as a payment method as well as an investment. It’s increased both the fluidity and the liquidity of the currency and made it more attractive to both customers and merchants alike.

This digital online currency operates through a peer-to-peer network structure, giving anyone with a connection immediate access to a payment method wherever they are in the world. This is a definite advantage, and when combined with the low transaction fees it’s clear to see why it has become popular. It’s also decentralized (in common with its peers) and offers safe and anonymous currency transfer. It’s also independent of any central control, so no government or bank has any authority over it.

Just as with Bitcoin, Litecoin’s mining algorithm produces Litecoin blocks every time a complex mathematical algorithm is solved by one of the miners, and the speed of this production continues to be one of the drivers of its ongoing success.