Litecoin Cash - the First Litecoin Fork

  • Bitcoins
  • 13.02.2018 07:30 am

Litecoin Cash has announced that the countdown has begun towards the release of a new cryptocurrency that will be born from a hard fork of Litecoin (LCC). At Litecoin block 1371111, Litecoin Cash (LCC) will be created.

Everyone holding Litecoin will automatically receive 10 Litecoin Cash for every Litecoin they own. While Litecoin has always been mined with Scrypt, Litecoin Cash is a proof of work cryptocurrency securing the network using the SHA256 hashing algorithm. This allows an extension of life for older Bitcoin mining hardware, which is no longer powerful enough to mine Bitcoin; the lower anticipated difficulty of mining Litecoin Cash will put such legacy hardware to effective use.

A SHA256 Coin For The Real World

Litecoin Cash has significant advantages compared to the other main SHA256-mined coins, Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). While those currencies both have a 10-minute block time, Litecoin Cash's 2.5-minute block target allows much faster transaction confirmation.

Compared to Litecoin itself, the new fork features superior mining difficulty retargeting, via the proven DarkGravity algorithm used by Dash. Transaction fees are also reduced by 90 percent to provide incentive for real-world use.

In order to ensure a fair launch, Litecoin Cash implements slow-start control to block rewards and intend to pre-release a bootstrap file to prevent a blockchain download race once the wallets become available (slated to happen shortly after the fork block).

The network will use a new address prefix and replay attack prevention to eliminate inter-chain issues and minimize user confusion.

The Litecoin Fork

The markets have become accustomed to Bitcoin hard forks over recent months, but Litecoin Cash brings the concept to a new space and potentially a new set of users. As such, the development team is very keen to provide user education and promote "responsible forking".

A private key that holds currency should never be pasted into any website or wallet application in order to claim forked coins, and the team encourages users to move their Litecoin to a completely new address after the fork, before using the private key from the "old" address to claim their Litecoin Cash.

Although the fork is currently expected to occur at 02:00 UTC on Monday 19 February, the predicted fork time may move slightly earlier or later, as the precise time block 1371111 is reached depends on the available Litecoin mining power.

How to Claim Litecoin Cash 

Firstly, never paste private keys that hold any currency into any website or wallet in order to claim forked coins (including ours). Practice responsible forking:

  • Wait for the fork 
  • Move your Litecoin to a new address 
  • Use the private key for the "old" address to claim your Litecoin Cash

Litecoin cash have made is really easy to claim. No need to mess around in the debug console; the user just needs to download a wallet for his or her platform straight off the official Litecoin cash website; they'll then find a menu item to help import your Litecoin private keys and claim your Litecoin Cash.

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