Litecoin (sign: Ł; abr .: LTC) is a cryptocurrency supported by the P2P network , and an open source software project published under the MIT license . 1 Inspired and practically identical in technical aspect 2 to Bitcoin (BTC), the creation and transfer of litecoin is based on a cryptographic protocol of open source that is not managed by any central authority. 1 3 litecoin was intended to be an electronic currency alternative 4 of Bitcoinand offers three main differences. 5 6 First, the network performs processing litecoin a block every 2.5 minutes instead of every 10 minutes, which allows faster transaction confirmation. 1 Second, the Litecoin network will produce approximately 4 times more units than Bitcoin , or about 84 million Litecoins. 1 Third, Litecoin uses the scrypt function in its working test algorithm: a hard memory sequential function first conceived by Colin Percival, facilitating mining, since it does not need sophisticated equipment as in the case of Bitcoin . 7 18 Each litecoin is divided into 100,000,000 smaller units, defined by eight decimals.