2011 was a year when a younger brother of Bitcoin was brought to life, and ever since, he has worn the name of Litecoin. So, now you know a few more names that are present on the cryptocurrency market. Here, in this article, you will understand what this cryptocurrency is, how you can buy Litecoin and how to store it.
The most vital part is buying Litecoin (LTC). In a nutshell, as with many cryptocurrencies, the process goes this way:
- Get a wallet for your Litecoin LTC (e.g., Exodus, Ledger, Edge)
- Find an exchange that sells Litecoin (e.g., Coinmama, CEX.io)
- Deposit money and make the trade
- Withdraw the LTCs to your wallet
Further, I will give more details on how to buy Litecoin via a plethora of crypto exchanges and what crypto assets you should have to store in the most efficient way. The details will be the following:
- Litecoin LTC: what is it?
- How to buy Litecoin LTC in 3 simple steps
- 2.1. Getting a wallet
- 2.2. Finding the blockchain exchange platform
- 2.3 Withdrawing your coins
- Extra methods to buy LTC
- LTC with PayPal
- LTC with no verification/ photo ID
- Bottom line
Litecoin LTC: what is it?
There were examples in the world when individuals working for big companies sometimes created new promising and popular-to-be spin-off projects. The same happened with Litecoin when Charlie Lee created it based on Bitcoin. October 2011 became a turning point for Charlie Lee s career path, now a former employee of Google and for Litecoin becoming one of the most promising cryptocurrencies.
Even though Litecoin is a Bitcoin spin-off with its general idea behind it, it has some specific changes and features of its own:
- The time of LTC transaction (or block time) is 4 times faster than for Bitcoin. You have to wait for a mere 2 and a half minutes.
- The changing of the SHA-256 mining algorithm to Scrypt made it more difficult to create mining hardware for Litecoin.
- There are 63 million coins of Litecoin more on the market than Bitcoin coins.
We can call Litecoin a digital silver as opposed to Bitcoin as digital gold. What is more important when comparing these two cryptocurrencies is that Litecoin costs less, and there are way more coins of it than Bitcoin.
How to buy Litecoin LTC in 3 simple steps
Getting a wallet
When you aim to buy Litecoin or any other currencies, the first thing you do is to find a decent wallet. Sometimes it takes ages to find the right one, suitable just for you and your purposes. Luckily, with cryptocurrencies, you do not have to search for specific leather or accessories. The only thing you have to keep in mind is the security of the wallet, where you store your coins in-between times when you buy and sell them. In this part of the article, I will tell you about some wallets available for Litecoin and highlight their pros and cons.
Litecoin Hardware Wallets
I will start with the most secure option for cryptocurrency wallets or hardware wallets. Such devices allow storing your coins with no connection to the network, thus limiting the chances of theft and faulty actions. They have a private key that gives you access to the coins you have bought.
There are many options to choose from to get your Litecoin wallet, but I recommend paying attention to the biggest and the most trustful cryptocurrency wallet providers – Ledger and TREZOR. You can choose any of these two companies. They both do an amazing job providing hardware wallets that have desktop versions and also mobile. The manufacturers now know that it is way easier to open an app to connect to your bank account. I advise you to take a look at my reviews on Ledger Nano X and TREZOR T.
Litecoin Software Wallets
If you are a newbie to the cryptocurrency market and are not really sure whether invest fully into crypto assets such as a hardware wallet, then a nice and cheaper option would be a software wallet. These wallets are free programs that you can use to store your crypto while you trade, buy and sell it. With such a wallet, you can easily access it via a desktop app or a mobile app. I recommend first check out the most user-friendly and easy-to-get-into wallets: the Exodus wallet and the Edge wallet. The first wallet is only for desktop use, whereas the other one only has a mobile app. I advise starting with the Exodus wallet following the information from my review on it.
If you are not sure what type of wallet to choose, there is a Bitcoin Whiteboard Tuesday episode on these crypto assets. You should check it out.
LTC address
When you chose your wallet, you have to find your Litecoin (LTC) address which usually comprises of a string of letters mixed with numbers. The first element in this string can be either “L,” “M,” or “3”. So, basically, you will see something like this:
3ML2Wfgfdds21eMpR1Lh6j3Sa59cYUYs1SPzj9eXpUi1
Finding the blockchain exchange platform
As we sure had to expect, the more popular the cryptocurrency is, the more ways of exchanging cryptocurrencies are there. In this section, I will tell you more on how to sell and buy your crypto the easiest way and review all cons and pros of cryptocurrency exchangers present on the crypto market today (like Coinbase, Coinmama).
Buy Litecoin via eToro
eToro is one of the crypto trading platforms that has become extremely popular and allows you to use various types of payment methods. Here you can exchange your fiat currency (like EUR, USD, GBP) for cryptocurrencies in the most smooth way. However, there is a downside: it is not that easy to get real coins. Meaning, that eToro is for users who are more into trading and price speculations rather than for actually owing their money.
Still, with eToro, you can transfer your crypto to other people and get it to your wallet. Though, I cannot say this platform is appropriate for just this sole action.
The biggest advantages of eToro are:
- User-friendly interface that allows you to easily get what you have to do to buy and sell your cryptocurrency;
- Fast customer support working 24/7;
- You can choose basically any payment method that is convenient to you at the moment.
- If investors aim to use eToro to invest the cryptocurrency, there is no need for them to get a Litecoin wallet first. They can use a certain currency for that.
A vital disclaimer: 25% of investors do not lose their crypto when trading with eToro. Be cautious if you are a newbie and do not want to end up being in debt. Think twice before deciding on taking the market risk since cryptocurrencies change their prices way too easily and fast.
Buy Litecoin via Coinmama
Coinmama is the best trading platform if you have to buy LTC and sell LTC right away via a plethora of payment options like a credit card, debit card, bank transfers. Since 2013 this company has been offering its services to users from all over the world. You can, for sure, name it reliable and trustworthy. I did a review on Coinmama here.
The downside of this exchange platform is relatively high fees and, probably, that in comparison to eToro, you still have to own your Litecoin wallet and an account. However, the coins transfer happens in no time at all.
Buy Litecoin via CEX.io
CEX.io is also a trustworthy exchange platform that has been on the market since 2013. It plays a role of a broker, so it would be simpler to get into the crypto business for complete beginners. But for broker services, you will have to pay quite high fees (about 7%) while the trading platform just takes 0.25%.
CEX.io is a platform that uses a plethora of payment methods (credit card, debit card, bank transfers, etc.) and works in two ways:
- as a broker: it makes the process of buying and selling your crypto easy, but it comes at a price. Basically, it is the company that is operating with your coins.
- As an exchange platform: it can be rather complicated for newbies to interact directly with other users that wish to buy LTC or sell LTC directly, but such a way is cheaper.
For a small amount of cryptocurrency, I would recommend using the first option since it will save you time and takes the stress off your shoulders while at the same time there will not big difference in price.
Buy Litecoin via Coinbase
Coinbase has been offering trade services since 2012. Though, only users from 103 countries can access it. For a bank transfer within the US, mainly for ACH and SEPA, the platform offers quite low fees. Again, traders can use various payment options, like a debit card or bank account.
The only downside for Coinbase is their support system that basically does not work. If you used Coinbase and encountered a problem, there is a high chance you will get no answer at all or get it too late.
Nevertheless, despite the reputation it has created, Coinbase is an old platform for exchanging crypto. And if they have support in the country you are a resident in, using Coinbase will be the cheapest option to trade your LTC Litecoin.
Buying Litecoin via Bitpanda
Bitpanda is a crypto broker that works only in Europe within countries that are in Schengen agreement, which is a big downside for a crypto exchange platform. Nevertheless, the company gives a wide range of payment options: credit card, debit card, SEPA/SOFORT/bank transfer, or via Skrill account. And it also does not charge you high fees.
The company has been around since 2014 and since then got a trustworthy reputation. Now, Bitpanda is the biggest cryptocurrency trade platform in Europe.
Buy Litecoin via Bitstamp
Bitstamp has been around for ages and can be considered the oldest cryptocurrency exchange platform. And simplicity is not its second name as opposed to Coinbase or Coinmama, so for beginners, it might be a bit hard to start buying and selling Litecoin right away. But it allows you to buy Litecoin via credit card or a wire bank transfer of fiat currencies (EUR, USD, GBP), or you can exchange your Bitcoin to Litecoin in trading pairs. The fees and exchange rate are the best among the competitors. You can also buy Litecoin or other cryptocurrencies directly via a credit card at a premium.
Withdrawing your coins
So, the process of buying Litecoin is quite simple:
- you choose a trading platform where you want to trade a certain amount of Litecoin
- you choose a wallet you want to store each coin you have
- you open a Litecoin account
- you choose a payment option (credit card, debit card, bank account) and buy Litecoin.
Make sure to withdraw the Litecoins from the exchange to your personal wallet. Remember that not a single coin should stay in an exchange platform since platforms tend to get hacked or get shut down. Do not risk losing even the minimum amount of coins.
Extra methods to buy LTC
It gets easier to buy Litecoin if you already have another crypto on hand, like Bitcoin. In this case, you do not have to go to traders and connect your bank account with your debit card or credit card to the wallet and then changing the fiat currency for Litecoin on, for example, Coinbase. You can just use crypto to crypto exchanges like Binance. Remember that you can always buy Bitcoin and convert them to Litecoins using Binance.
LTC with PayPal
Unfortunately, you can buy Litecoin directly via PayPal. However, you can buy Bitcoins with Paypal and then exchange them for Litecoins on crypto to crypto exchange like Binance or Changelly.
The only thing to bear in mind is that buying crypto with PayPal usually comes with thousands of fees. Check beforehand what minimum and the maximum fee you can get for buying a certain amount of crypto.
LTC with no verification/ photo ID
So far, Litecoin is less popular than other crypto products such as Bitcoin. That is why it might be hard to find a trade network with good prices and exchange rates. I would say that probably the best method of buying Litecoin anonymously is trading Bitcoins or Altcoins anonymously to Litecoins on Binance or Changelly with a fake email a phone number.
Bottom line
Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin that showed all the world that Litecoin is a coin that is here to stay for long. Even now, Litecoin has gained a lot of partners and has a large community that uses it.
No one is sure whether Litecoin is going to enter the future monetary system, but now it falls the big brother steps. You can mine Litecoin since there are 18,785,925 Litecoin are left to mine.
FAQs:
Is Litecoin a good buy?
The market cap of Litecoin is around 16B. With prices and conversion rates, I would say that Litecoin can be a good investment in the future. Reread the article above to get the full picture. of the reasons why you should get a Litecoin in 2021.
Where can I buy Litecoin?
You can buy Litecoin on any cryptocurrency exchange platform by either buying it (for example, with a credit card) or by exchanging another cryptocurrency (for example, Altcoins) to Litecoin. You just need to have a wallet, a Litecoin account, and some money to spare on your credit card.
Will Litecoin ever reach $1000?
If we look at the market cap of Litecoin, the prediction would be the following that Litecoin will probably reach $1000 by 2030. While the projections can be daring, reality can also bring about certain surprises. Anyhow, the one with a considerable amount of crypto will be in a beneficial situation, be as it may in the future.
Should I buy Litecoin in 2021?
The opinions vary, but if we look at the predictions that clearly state that the Litecoin market cap is going to blow up in the next decade, then I would say you had better open a Litecoin wallet, set up an account, and get ready for trading some LTCs.
