Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC or Ł[1]) is a peer-to-peercryptocurrency and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license.[2]Creation and transfer of coins is based on anopen source cryptographic protocol and is not managed by any central authority.[2][3] The coin was inspired by, and in technical details is nearly identical to, Bitcoin (BTC).
History
Litecoin was released via an open-sourceclient on GitHub on October 7, 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee.[4] The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011.[5] It was a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, differing primarily by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins, different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead ofSHA-256), and a slightly modified GUI.[6]
During the month of November 2013, the aggregate value of Litecoin experienced massive growth which included a 100% leap within 24 hours.[7]
Litecoin reached a $1 billion market capitalization in November 2013.[8] By late November 2017, its market capitalization wasUS$4,600,081,733 ($85.18 per coin).[9][10] By mid-December 2017, the coin's marketcap had reached US$20,000,000,000 and each litecoin was valued at approximatelyUS$371.00.
In May 2017, Litecoin became the first of the top-5 (by market cap) cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness.[11] Later in May of the same year, the first Lightning Networktransaction was completed through Litecoin, transferring 0.00000001 LTC from Zürich to San Francisco in under one second.[12]
Differences from Bitcoin
Litecoin is different in some ways fromBitcoin.
- The Litecoin Network aims to process a block every 2.5 minutes, rather than Bitcoin's 10 minutes. The developers claim that this allows Litecoin to have faster transaction confirmation.[2][13]
- Litecoin uses scrypt in its proof-of-workalgorithm, a sequential memory-hard function requiring asymptotically more memory than an algorithm which is not memory-hard.[14]
Due to Litecoin's use of the scrypt algorithm,FPGA and ASIC devices made for mining Litecoin are more complicated to create and more expensive to produce than they are for Bitcoin, which uses SHA-256.
Crypto-anarchism (or crypto-anarchy) is acyber-spatial realization of anarchism.[1]Crypto-anarchists employ cryptographicsoftware to evade prosecution and harassment while sending and receiving information over computer networks, in an effort to protect their privacy and political freedom.
By using cryptographic software, the association between the identity of a certain user or organization and the pseudonym they use is made difficult to find, unless the user reveals the association. It is difficult to say which country's laws will be ignored, as even the location of a certain participant is unknown. However, participants may in theory voluntarily create new laws using smart contracts or, if the user is pseudonymous, depend on online reputation.
Terminology
"Crypto-" comes from the Ancient Greekκρυπτός kruptós, "concealed, private, hidden, secret." Thus crypto-anarchism refers to anarchist politics founded on cryptographic methods, as well as a form of anarchism that operates in secret.[2]
Motives
One motive of crypto-anarchists is to defend against surveillance of computer networks communication. Crypto-anarchists try to protect against government mass surveillance, such as PRISM, Tempora,telecommunications data retention, the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Room 641A, the FRA and so on. Crypto-anarchists consider the development and use ofcryptography to be the main defense against such problems, as opposed to political action.
A second concern is evasion of censorship, particularly Internet censorship, on the grounds of freedom of expression. The programs used by crypto-anarchists often make it possible to both publish and read information off the internet or other computer networks anonymously. For example, Tor, I2P,Freenet and many similar networks allow for anonymous "hidden" webpages accessible only by users of these programs, while projects like Bitmessage allow for anonymous messaging system intended to be a substitute for email. This helps whistleblowers and political opposition in oppressive nations to spread their information.
A third reason -- and one of increasing importance -- is to build and participate incounter economics, which includes development of viable alternatives to banking systems, and development of alternative financial systems which provide the user with options for greater privacy or anonymity.Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and services like Silk Road and Black Market Reloadedmade it possible to trade goods and services with little interference from the law. These are examples of centralized, and thus vulnerable, marketplaces, or tools. Similarly, web walletsemployed by Bitcoin users are also centralized and vulnerable. Decentralized and distributed marketplaces and currency exchanges present significantly less risk to the user. One example of a decentralized and distributed marketplace is OpenBazaar.
The technical challenge in developing and maintaining these cryptographic systems is tremendous, which causes some programmers to be interested in joining such projects.
Cryptography and law
Crypto-anarchists argue that without encryption abilities, messages, personal information, and private life would be seriously damaged. They argue that a ban on cryptography is equal to the eradication ofsecrecy of correspondence. They argue that only a draconian police-state would criminalize cryptography. It is already illegal to use it in some countries, and export laws are restrictive in others. Citizens in the United Kingdom must, upon request, give keys for decryption of personal systems to authorities. Failing to do this can result in imprisonment for up to two years, without evidence of other criminal activity.[3]
This legislative key-surrender tactic can be circumvented using automatic rekeying ofsecure channels through rapid generation of new, unrelated public and private keys at short intervals. Following rekeying, the old keys can be deleted, rendering previously used keys inaccessible to the end-user, and thus removing the user's ability to disclose the old key, even if they are willing to do so. Technologies enabling this sort of rapidly rekeyed encryption include public-key cryptography, hardware PRNGs, perfect forward secrecy, and opportunistic encryption. Many apps commonly in use today on mobile devices around the world employ such encryption. The only ways to stop this sort of cryptography is to ban it completely (any such ban would be unenforceable for any government that is nottotalitarian, as it would result in massive invasions of privacy, such as blanket permission for physical searches of all computers at random intervals), or otherwise raise barriers to its practical use (be theytechnological or legal). Such barriers represent a difficulty and risk to the users of such cryptographic technology which would limit and potentially prevent its widespread adoption. Generally, it is the threat of prosecution which limits the use and proliferation of a technology more so than the ease-of-use of a technology in and of itself.
Crypto-anarchism is an ideology that seeks to create and deploy information infrastructure that, by design, is unable to comply with authoritarian requests to break the participating individuals' secrecy of correspondence.
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