Litecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies today- aptly termed as “silver to BTC’s gold”, LTC has experienced great growth since its inception in 2011. Akin to its 2009 released predecessor (Bitcoin) Litecoin is a peer-to-peer currency and is generated through mining. However, unlike BTC, which is based on SHA-256, the LTC model is based on scrypt algorithm. It is said that Litecoin was developed to provide an improved version of digital currency in comparison to Bitcoin. LTC can process a block in every 2.5 minutes whilst BTC takes 10 minutes to process a block. Then, LITC will total to 84 mn coins in future while the total mining cap for Bitcoin is 21 million. The scrypt algorithm used for LTC assures a better cost-effective mining than Bitcoin.
The good news is that Litecoin is going steady on its way to come up as mainstream currency soon. Already a lot of businesses have started accepting LTC as an approved form of payment. No wonder, you would prefer to mine up Litecoins to sure a prospective investment portfolio. Here is a brief on the different ways to mine Litecoins.
CPU & GPU LTC mining
There are two principal ways of mining Litecoins. One is through CPU (Central Processing Unit) & GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). If it’s your maiden innings in the world of digital currency and you are not backed by a say souped-up gaming PC, CPU Litecoin mining is the option for you. It’s the most traditional way to mine digital currency but at way slower rate than other options.
The modern busy era is in perennial demand for high speed where the slow CPU mining is almost not viable. Thus, you have the GPU LTC mining option that assures successful Litecoin mining at far faster speed than the CPU option.
You will need to get a strong dedicated graphics-processor installed inside your computer to start on with the LTC GPU mining. A good lot of Altcoin miners today have come up with dedicated mining machines utilizing computer motherboards which are able to house several graphics cards, generally via the riser cables. As these machines are chiefly meant for mining the Litecoins, you are guaranteed of a specialized and faster service here.
However, it is to mention here that LTC mining is system-intensive & would reduce the longevity of the electronic components over time. Thus you must be careful to arrange for adequate cooling for the electric mining tools to guarantee a secured lifespan.
FPGA/ASIC Miners
It’s to inform that you also have the more advanced FPGA/ASIC Miners today for mining the Litecoins. The FPGA/ASIC Miners assure far superior and way faster mining than the conventional mining mediums discussed above. The most loved advantage of the trendy option is that here you can mine at much lower rate of power consumption which invariably lowers down the mining costs. For example- any computer mining device generating say 2800KH/s of mining speed will draw around 1200 Watt power that would cost around 100 USD per month. But your ASIC miner would simply cost 5 USD per month. It’s little wonder that the smart LTC miners are increasingly moving on to FPGA/ASIC Miners.
Now, there comes a question- whether you would mine solo or in a mining pool? In solo mining you are mining yourself and hence the reward attained would be solely enjoyed by you. But in case of mining LTC in a pool , you are mining along with a group of miners. The reward attained here would be shared among all the miners in the group. Solo mining apparently look very lucrative but pool mining is safer. It may take years for you to generate a new block and the reward attained might be of little or o value after so many years. Bit in a mining pool, block generation is way faster as a collective effort goes into creating the block. Thus here you can always be assured of a regular income flow.
You must stay abreast about latest happenings across the Litecoin zone to ensure a successful & informed LTC investment.
