Litecoin was born in 2011 when a former Google employee decided it was time.

It was immediately understood that there was a substantial difference compared to the Bitcoin customer, i.e. Litecoin differs mainly for having decreased the processing time of a block. There were also other innovations, for example, Litecoin has increased the number of coins, and has a different hash algorithm. In short, it quickly becomes clear that the new currency is something different from Bitcoin.

Litecoin is a available virtual currency like most cryptocurrencies. Any central authority does not issue Litecoins; this means that to create a Litecoin you proceed through a mining activity, or "extraction" of coins, a bit like it also happens for Bitcoins.

The success achieved by Litecoin today makes it a currency that can be exchanged with a large number of different currencies, including not just virtual ones. Among the countries in which the currency has obtained more use and diffusion are the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland and Russia.