Much of the world has been focused the past few years on the dramatic rise of cryptocurrencies. Today, there are several popular cryptocurrencies that continue to intrigue investors, merchants and finance professionals. Two of the most popular and common digital coins today are Bitcoin and Litecoin. Read on to discover the differences between Bitcoin and Litecoin, and what separates them apart from each other.

Market Capitalization
One of the main differences between Bitcoin and Litecoin is the market cap. Currently, Litecoin has a market cap that is just under $8 billion USD. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has a market cap that is nearly $140 billion USD. This makes Bitcoin by far the largest digital currency in the market today.

Processing Speed
Another major difference between Bitcoin and Litecoin is the processing speed. Bitcoin has one of the slower processing speed of all digital coins today with an average speed of 10 minutes to process a transaction. This is compared to Litecoin, which can process a transaction in under three minutes. This better speed can be an advantage for merchants that want to offer cryptocurrency payments.

Algorithms
The value of the digital currency ultimately lies in the algorithm behind them. Bitcoin uses a SHA-256 algorithm while Litecoin uses a Scrypt algorithm. Overall, the algorithm for Bitcoin is considered more sophisticated than Litecoin. However, Litecoin is considered to be less susceptible to custom mining hardware than Bitcoin.

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