For individuals who bear in mind the early days of crypto, there weren’t practically as many tokens as there at the moment are.
There have been the pioneers like Bitcoin (BTC -0.03%) and Ethereum (ETH -0.14%), which nonetheless dominate the headlines at present. After which after all there was a batch of altcoins that in all probability received extra consideration again then than they do now as a result of they had been a few of the first altcoins on the time. A type of was Litecoin (LTC -0.12%), which continues to be alive and doing in addition to any cryptocurrency can, contemplating the present state of the business this yr.
Litecoin received its begin all the best way again in 2011, and regardless of the sell-off this yr nonetheless has near a $4.7 billion market cap, making it the 14th-largest cryptocurrency at present. Should you had invested $500 in Litecoin in 2016, this is how a lot you’ll have now.
Picture supply: Getty Photos.
An OG altcoin
Litecoin was developed by former Google engineer Charles Lee as a response to Bitcoin. When Lee began the community and coin, he referred to it as a “lite model of Bitcoin.” The code can also be a modified model of Bitcoin’s open-source code.
The community does have a number of similarities to Bitcoin. For example, Litecoin nonetheless operates on a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, through which miners on the community attempt to resolve a cryptographic puzzle as rapidly as attainable to get the chance to confirm transactions in a block. In return for his or her service, the miner that’s chosen receives a reward in Litecoin cash. Nonetheless, Litecoin makes use of a less-energy-intensive PoW consensus mechanism than Bitcoin.
Additionally like Bitcoin, Litecoin does have a finite provide — 84 million Litecoin cash in comparison with Bitcoin’s 21 million. Roughly 70 million Litecoin cash have already been issued, however the final Litecoin coin nonetheless is not anticipated to be issued for an additional 100 years.
One huge distinction between Litecoin and Bitcoin is that Litecoin can course of 54 transactions per second (TPS), in comparison with Bitcoin, which may solely do lower than 10. When Litecoin first got here out, this was thought of a giant deal as a result of fee networks must deal with lots of TPS if they’re going to have the ability to scale and keep away from the congestion that slows the community and ends in excessive utilization charges. For example, Visa, the most important fee rail on the planet, is able to processing 24,000 TPS.
By way of value motion, whereas Litecoin is valued a lot lower than Bitcoin, it has largely moved in tandem with the world’s most beneficial crypto, as so many cryptocurrencies do.
Bitcoin Price knowledge by YCharts
Should you invested $500 in Litecoin in 2016…
A number of years in the past, I believe Litecoin was a a lot larger deal than it’s at present. Now there are lots of networks that may course of extra TPS than Litecoin. That stated, I believe as one of many older cryptocurrencies, Litecoin will proceed to get lots of respect due to its legitimacy, which is a giant deal proper now after the collapse of crypto alternate FTX.
Should you had invested $500 in Litecoin in 2016, you’ve got performed fairly nicely. On the finish of November 2016, Litecoin traded for simply $3.86.
As we speak, it trades for greater than $65, which implies traders that received in on the token in late 2016 have seen a return of roughly 1,592% versus 72% for the S&P 500 Index. Meaning $500 invested again then is value about $8,460 at present.
Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. The Motley Idiot has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Visa. The Motley Idiot has a disclosure policy.
