In addition to Bitcoin, there is a category of cryptocurrencies that has gained widespread recognition among the public. These cryptocurrencies are referred to as "major coins," and Litecoin is a representative example.

Litecoin has a very long history, having been born on October 7, 2011, with its founder being Charlie Lee. Initially, Lee first encountered Bitcoin through an article describing the dark web's "Silk Road." After learning about it, he was deeply fascinated by Bitcoin's concept of a "decentralized currency." Like most geeks, he worked while also participating in Bitcoin’s network maintenance.

However, during the mining process, Lee found Bitcoin’s network too congested and its processing efficiency too low, which led him to consider improving Bitcoin. He aimed to create a lighter and faster cryptocurrency. Thus, on October 8, 2011, Litecoin’s genesis block was born, and five days later, the Litecoin network officially launched, marking Litecoin’s first appearance in the world.

In its early days, Lee positioned Litecoin as a competitor to Bitcoin, hoping it could divert some of Bitcoin’s payment transactions, ultimately realizing the vision of using Bitcoin for large payments and Litecoin for small transactions. Therefore, while Litecoin borrowed much of Bitcoin’s network design in its initial setup, it differed significantly in processing speed and supply.

In terms of block generation speed, the Litecoin network processes a block every 2.5 minutes, whereas Bitcoin takes 10 minutes per block, meaning Litecoin’s network is faster. In terms of supply, Bitcoin has a total of 21 million coins, while Litecoin has four times that amount—84 million.

However, back then, Bitcoin had far more competitors than just Litecoin. Over time, because Bitcoin was the first of its kind and gained such high recognition—even reaching the level of "belief"—other altcoins couldn’t compete and eventually faded into failure. During this period, Litecoin once faced near extinction.

It wasn’t until 2016, when the Bitcoin community became divided over whether to adopt new technologies to solve network congestion issues. After all, theory and practice are different—no one knew if these untested technologies would work.

At this point, the Litecoin team decided to be the guinea pig. On July 3, 2016, the Litecoin Association released the "Litecoin Official 2016 Development Roadmap," announcing the integration of new technologies such as Segregated Witness (SegWit), Lightning Network, and smart contracts into its latest version. Litecoin took the lead in experimenting to help Bitcoin verify the feasibility of these technologies.

From then on, Litecoin became tightly bound to Bitcoin, and the nickname "Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver" became widely circulated. Over time, Litecoin evolved into a complementary coin to Bitcoin, assisting in testing new technologies and handling small payments and transfers.

To this day, Litecoin has been around for over a decade. Among the altcoins that once competed with Bitcoin, almost only Litecoin remains. Recently, Litecoin has also planned to integrate new privacy technologies into its system. While future competitors may emerge, Litecoin is likely to adapt well—it has already found its direction in the ever-evolving world of blockchain technology.