Often referred to as "digital silver" to Bitcoin's "digital gold," Litecoin (LTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee in 2011, designed to be a faster and more lightweight alternative to Bitcoin.

Litecoin has pioneered atomic swaps, allowing for trustless and decentralized exchange between different cryptocurrencies, enhancing interoperability and facilitating seamless transactions across multiple blockchain networks.

Litecoin uses the Scrypt hashing algorithm, which enables faster block generation times and lower transaction fees compared to Bitcoin, making it ideal for everyday transactions and micropayments.

Litecoin has an active development team and a supportive community of developers, miners, and users, continually working on improving the protocol, implementing new features, and promoting adoption worldwide.

Litecoin was one of the first major cryptocurrencies to implement Segregated Witness (SegWit), a protocol upgrade that increases transaction capacity, improves scalability, and enables the implementation of second-layer solutions like the Lightning Network.

Like Bitcoin, Litecoin has a limited supply of 84 million coins, with periodic halving events reducing block rewards over time, making it deflationary and potentially increasing its value over the long term.