Litecoin (LTC) Cloud Mining Services

Litecoin Review: Prices, Advantages, Mining Services

Litecoin cryptocurrency was released in October, 2011 on GitHub. The founder is known as Charles Lee, who is a former employee of Google. This digital currency is a close resemblance of Bitcoin with a slight variation in block generation time, hashing algorithms and GUI. The block generation of Litecoin is a bit faster than Bitcoin’s one since it only takes two and a half minutes compared to 10 minutes. Litecoin uses Scrypt instead of SHA-256 hashing algorithm.

The Features Of Litecoin

• Scrypt Hashing algorithm.

Litecoin uses a unique hashing algorithm known as Scrypt. Scrypt relies mainly depends on the CPU and Memory. This therefore means that Litecoin has limited scalability and also require a lot of computing power especially when it comes to mining.

• Improved block generation time.

It takes 2.5 minutes to generate a new block of Litecoin. This is a great improvement from what Bitcoin offers.

• Open source software.

This means that individuals can modify and distribute the modified version of the software at their own will.

• Litecoin Mining.

At the moment there are few developed dedicated Litecoin Mining ASIC hardware for mining Litecoin. The fact that Litecoin uses Scrypt makes it quite difficult since most of the developed ASIC miners were mainly tailored towards mining SHA-256 Hashing algorithm crypto coins.

But with the emerging trend of altcoins opting to use Scrypt, miners’ developers have started designing miners which can easily mine Scrypt based altcoins. The only essential thing about Scrypt based altcoins like Litecoin is that they require a lot of memory and powerful processors with high processing speeds.

Some investors choose to first mine Bitcoin and then convert them to Litecoin so as to increase their Litecoin mining profitability. But it is more risky and unpredictable way of Litecoin earning.

Litecoin Prices

After its release, Litecoin’s prices remained below $10 per token for about two continuous years before getting slightly above $50 in November, 2013. But even after shooting to above $50 per token, by mid-June the following year of 2014, the prices slid back to below $10 per token.

The prices maintained below $10 per token for about 3 years. Then, as from the beginning of April, 2017, the prices started soaring hitting a climax of above $360 per token in mid-December, 2017.

The continuous rise in the prices within this period could be greatly attributed to the continuous upgrade and release of better Litecoin Core versions from January, 2017 to September, 2017. This then was boosted by the hyped financial activities around the festive month of December.

After the prices rising that high, the Litecoin market prices have taken a “recess” over the last month to currently trade at $153.52 USD. This represents about 57.5% depreciation from the time high it attained in December 2017.

However, the prices are predicted to stabilize and resume their bullish trend, especially after the release of the much anticipated v0.15.1rc1 Litecoin Core version in 8th of February, 2018.

How To Mine Litecoin

Just as in any cryptocurrency, mining Litecoin ensures that Litecoin transactions are verified and that new Litecoin coins are generated.

Even with a circulating supply of 55,179,633 LTC, mining is still required to achieve the targeted maximum supply of 84,000,000 LTC.

The miners get a mining reward of 25 Litecoins per every mined block and this reward is halved after every four years, which is an equivalent of after mining every 840,000 Litecoin blocks.

Although a bit hectic, Litecoin can be mined using a variety of methods. The available mining options for Litecoin include using CPU/GPU miners, ASIC miners or Litecoin cloud mining.

Essentially, since Litecoin is based on Scrypt and uses Proof-of-Work during mining, the mining becomes quite costly in terms of power consumption and delivery delays. That is why it is advisable to opt for LTC cloud mining so as to increase your Litecoin mining profitability.

• GPU/CPU Litecoin mining:

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) or the Central Processing Units (CPU) can be dedicated for mining Litecoins. However, due to the computing power required to mine Litecoin, using the GPU/CPU is somehow non profitable at all.

Also, considering that most personal computer has slow computing speeds, the reward delays may be increased hence reducing the profitability even more.

• ASIC Litecoin Mining:

Due to the reduced Litecoin mining profitability when using the GPU/CPU to mine Litecoins, Developers went ahead and developed ASIC hardware that could mine Scrypt based altcoins. However, even with the ASIC Litecoin mining hardware, users have to be extremely careful with the Power consumption and network difficulties especially with older versions.

• Litecoin Cloud Mining:

So far this is the only mining option with high Litecoin mining profitability.

LTC cloud mining involves the miner leasing the mining services from a cloud mining service provider who offers remote mining resources (hardware and pool) for the miner to use.

Best Litecoin Cloud Mining Services

There are a lot of services offering Litecoin mining. But only few of them are credible. Genesis mining was established at the end of 2013. The service offers LTC cloud mining with:

• Minimum hashrate of 1 MH/s;
• Daily automatic payouts;
• No maintenance fees.

HashFlare is known as one of the trusted mining service with a loyal prices and special offers. Its features:

• Contract term is 12 months;
• Hashrate of 1 MH/s for $3.20;
• $0.05 fee per day;
• A return of $ 0.1132 per day.

Nicehash.com is a cloud mining provider based in Slovenia. It unites buyers and sellers of hashing power. NiceHash has its own app named Nice Miner, which helps users to sell their hashing power at the high prices. Buyers are guaranteed with access to hashpower on all the algorithms.