These two have been called the "Gold" and "Silver" of cryptocurrencies.  Neither was pre-mined. Neither has a central authority. They are both transparent. 

## Table: Comparison of Bitcoin and Litecoin characteristics 

|  | Bitcoin | Litecoin |
| --------------- | ----------- | ----------------- |
| **Coin limit**  | 21 Million | 84 Million |
| **Algorithm** | SHA256 | Scrypt
| **Mean Block Time**   | 10 minutes | 2.5 minutes |
| **Difficulty Retarget** | 2016 blocks | 2016 blocks |
| **Block Reward Details** | Halved every 210,000 blocks | Halved every 840,000 blocks
| **Initial Reward**   | 50 BTC | 50 LTC |
| **Current Block Reward**  | 12.5 BTC | 25 LTC
| **Block Size**   | 1MB | 2MB |
| **SegWit**   | No | Adopted |
| **Block Explorer** | [blockchain.info](https://www.blockchain.info/) | [blockcypher.com](https://live.blockcypher.com/ltc/)
| **Creator**   | Satoshi Nakamoto | Charlie Lee |
| **Inception Date** | January 3, 2009 | October 7, 2011
| [Market Cap](https://coinmarketcap.com/#USD) | 42,043,683,247 USD | $2,608,139,774 |

Litecoin is basically a copy of Bitcoin with a few minor changes, such as block time. The table above highlights some of their essentials for quick viewing.

>Donations:
>BTC: 13kESuktH68C9Ue9xGiiiJJRj35JAkmTv3
>LTC: MVR4njQwGMzQmaPedHxe3cg6NTcrN7EhXm