Forks of existing cryptocurrencies have become the new hot commodity these days. In the case of Bitcoin, there has only been one successful fork so far, whereas everything else has taken a backseat. In Litecoin’s case, the first major “fork” to be created will be aptly known as Litecoin Cash. It is a SHA-256 fork of the existing Litecoin project, even though it remains to be seen how much interest there will be in this project.
Will Anyone Care About Litecoin Cash?
While no one will deny Litecoin has earned its place in the world of cryptocurrencies, the same will not necessarily apply to Litecoin Cash. It is a fork of Litecoin which changes quite a few of the things people have come to like about the original Litecoin, which may or may not be a good thing in the long run. Perhaps the biggest change is that Litecoin Cash will come with a SHA-256 algorithm for mining purposes.
The legitimate Litecoin uses Scrypt mining, which has been rather successful in its own right. Some companies have even developed proper ASIC hardware for this currency, although users can also mine other Scrypt coins with it. Litecoin Cash, on the other hand, wants to switch to SHA-256 to give people’s old Bitcoin mining hardware a second lease on life. It is a decision some people will appreciate, yet one which most others will ignore.
Moreover, this is not an exact fork of Litecoin by any means. With a total supply 10 times higher than that of LTC, it’s clear that Litecoin Cash may not see any real success in the short or long term. Existing LTC holders will automatically be eligible for the LCC airdrop at a ratio of 10 LCC for every 1 LTC owned at block 1,371,111. Assuming, that is, that any exchange or wallet provider supports the Litecoin Cash hard fork, which remains unclear as of now.
It also seems Litecoin Cash will have its own replay attack protection and a new address prefix. This seems to be rather similar to how Bitcoin Cash has evolved in the past few months, as those changes have worked out quite well for the popular altcoin. The LCC network’s mining difficulty will retarget automatically using Dash’s DarkGravity V3 algorithm. This should prevent any major issues with block times on the Litecoin Cash network.
Interestingly enough, early miners will not be able to reap the benefits of mining LCC at a low difficulty. Instead, the initial block reward will be small and grow over the course of the first 400 blocks. At its peak, there will be a 250 LCC block reward, which will halve at the same time the Litecoin block reward is cut in half. With a maximum supply of 840 million coins, there will be plenty of mining activity in the years to come.
The big question for now is whether or not Litecoin Cash will serve any real purpose. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Litecoin itself, even though not everyone may agree with that. Either way, introducing an unnecessary hard fork of an existing currency is never a good idea. Unless this currency can be used for multiple purposes, there is no reason for anyone to buy into LCC. Litecoin Cash will also support SegWit and the Lightning Network, which is rather interesting. For now, we will have to wait and see whether or not this fork can gain any noticeable traction.
