The MANTRA (OM) token’s wild crash on Apr 13, 2025, shocked the crypto world. Discover the causes, fallout, and what’s next in MANTRA’s road to recovery.

In the morning and daytime hours of Apr 13, 2025, the MANTRA blockchain's native token, OM, sat at a respectable market cap of $6 billion, making it the third-highest-ranked cryptocurrency in the 

 (RWA) category, the area the platform specializes in. Everything seemed like smooth sailing for the token.

Then, just after 6 PM UTC, the price of the OM token suddenly began to free-fall, declining from nearly $6 to about $0.50 in the space of just two hours.

A project that started the day as one of the top players in the RWA field was now worth 90% less as the evening approached. OM's abrupt, sharp crash immediately caught the market's attention, with speculation of a 

However, MANTRA's CEO, John Patrick Mullin, immediately sprang into action for PR damage control on social media, reassuring the public that the team members weren’t dumping OM tokens at all. Instead, MANTRA's founder and CEO alleged that deliberate actions of some 

 (CEXs) had caused the catastrophic plunge.

As of our coverage date of Apr 23, 2025, this is a developing story. In this article, we’ll establish what actually happened, who's involved and what awaits the OM token in the foreseeable future.

 decentralized network dedicated to RWA tokenization and utilization in compliance with real-world regulatory requirements.

 It features high scalability and low transaction fees. The project is one of the earliest initiatives dedicated to RWA use via blockchain technology. Originally, MANTRA debuted as a 

 (ETH) in August 2020. In October 2024, the project migrated to its own dedicated Layer 1 platform, the MANTRA Chain. The MANTRA blockchain is based on the Cosmos SDK framework, and is part of the wider 

The MANTRA ecosystem's main products include MANTRA DEX, a 

 (DEX); a digital identity (DID) management tool; a compliant token development and management solution; and a comprehensive compliance and permissioning system. MANTRA has also partnered with global powerhouses like Google Cloud, and with DAMAC Properties, one of Dubai's most prominent developers, to propel innovative solutions for 

Starting in late 2024, right after its own dedicated mainnet launch, MANTRA had become a significant player in the RWA corner of 

 (DeFi). By late February 2025, the platform’s native OM token had climbed to a value of nearly $9, with its market cap peaking at around $8.2 billion. Before the fateful events of Apr 13, 2025, OM was the third-highest-capped crypto in the RWA category, trading at $6.27, with a market cap of slightly over $6 billion, according to the CoinGecko portal.

In the evening hours (UTC time) of Apr 13, 2025, OM began to lose its value precipitously, dive-bombing from over $6 to about $0.52 in the space of two hours. The token’s market cap fell to slightly under half a billion dollars — a loss of more than 90%.

CEO John Mullin was quickly online, reassuring the crypto community that no team member had sold their OM holdings, and that this wasn’t a case of the bad ol’ rug pull. Instead, Mullin alluded that after OM tokens were moved to two leading CEXs (Binance and OKX) to use as collateral, the exchanges initiated a cascade of 

 of positions backed by the token. Both exchanges refuted the allegations, and connected OM’s price collapse to its recent unusually high price 

, and significant tokenomics changes made to OM in October 2024 that greatly undermined its value.

As a chain of liquidations took place, the token’s price started to plummet, causing significant panic that quickly led to further price drops. The situation only stabilized closer to the end of the day, with OM’s price remaining under $1. As of Apr 23, it’s trading at $0.5543 — a far cry from its rate of over $6 just two weeks ago.

After investigating, crypto analytics firm Lookonchain concluded that 17 wallets had deposited 43.6 million OM tokens (4.5% of the token's circulating supply) into the implicated exchanges. Two of these wallets are believed to belong to Laser Digital, one of MANTRA's investors. Another investor in the project, Shorooq Partners, is also suspected to be among the 17 wallets. Both Shorooq and Laser Digital have denied the allegations.

Although the price plunge was immediately compared to the 2022 collapse of the 

 (LUNA) blockchain, many analysts point out that the two crashes are fundamentally different. Terra's crash resulted from structural abnormalities in the 

 regulating UST, the project's stablecoin. In contrast, OM's fiasco is suspected to be the direct result of market-driven manipulation by 

, and possibly exchanges. No security breach, disruption to services or data, or other adverse structural events have occurred on the platform.

While this development is unprecedented for the project, MANTRA has been embroiled in other controversies throughout its history. One of these was its 

, first announced in August 2024 and then delayed multiple times. Around 50% of the wallets believed to be bots were cut off from the airdrop list. However, many considered the bot-culling process to have been conducted without much proof.

There have also been reports of vote rigging in the project's governance system in a bid to obscure MANTRA’s centralized model of profit allocation. Additionally, some analysts have accused the project of "forced bridging" to manipulate the market price. Platform users had to migrate their Ethereum-based OM tokens to MANTRA's native OM tokens via 

, which would increase gas fees and allow the project team to control the token's circulation pace.

How is MANTRA (OM) headed toward recovery?

MANTRA’s CEO rapidly reassured users that the team is now working hard to jump-start the token’s recovery. On Apr 14, 2025, Mullin unveiled plans to initiate a buyback scheme, along with the intent to burn all OM tokens held by the project team. The team's supply totals 300 million tokens, representing about 17% of the total supply.

He also denied factually incorrect assertions circulating online that the team effectively controls 90% of OM's supply. Mullin further assured the public that no large-scale selling events by investors have occurred.

As OM’s value has stayed firmly under $1, it remains to be seen how these PR efforts — as well as the planned buyback and burn — will affect the token’s future.

 as a swap pair with USDT, or on the Derivatives market as the 

Naturally, given the ongoing situation with the OM token, buying OM is at your own discretion, as right now the token is truly for the adventurous and brave at heart.

As of Apr 23, 2025, the OM token is trading at $0.5543, 93.8% lower than its ATH of $8.99 on Feb 23, 2025, and 3,138.8% higher than its ATL of $0.01726 on Oct 12, 2023.

Curiously, most crypto price prediction portals are optimistic about the OM token's long-term prospects. DigitalCoinPrice 

 of $1.81 in 2027 and $2.82 in 2030, whilePricePrediction 

It's hard to verify all the allegations flying around regarding the involvement of exchanges and key investors in the MANTRA OM incident. What matters at this stage is that the project team has been quick and proactive in injecting transparency and clarity into the situation.

The free fall in the token's price seems to be over by now. In fact, OM’s decline was over within hours of the incident. Moreover, unlike Terra's LUNA and UST coins, OM hasn't become worthless. All these factors point to potential stabilization and recovery ahead. The question now is: Will the pace and magnitude of the recovery be enough to save the project in the long term? At this early stage after the collapse, few people could answer the question with confidence. We'll eagerly await the developments over the next few weeks to see if MANTRA finds its way out of the woods. 

Intermediate

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MANTRA (OM): Understanding its wild ride and road to recovery

In this article, we explore WalletConnect's features, its native token (WCT) and how you can trade WCT on Bybit Spot and Futures.​

WalletConnect is an open source bridging protocol that facilitates secure connections between digital wallets and 

 (DApps). With over 38 million unique active wallets and 57,000 supported apps, it’s getting noticed by the crypto community. In this article, we explore WalletConnect's features, its native token (WCT) and how you can trade WCT on Bybit.​

 protocol that allows users to connect their mobile wallets to DApps via QR code. This eliminates the need for browser extensions, and enhances security by keeping 

The protocol supports a wide range of wallets and DApps, making it a versatile tool for users navigating DeFi and web3.

 is essentially a decentralized infrastructure that facilitates a uniformed way for users to easily connect their crypto wallets with thousands of DApps. It operates through a network of

 that relay messages, ensuring reliable and secure connections. The network's design emphasizes scalability and resilience, catering to the growing demands of DeFi. 

When a user initiates a connection between their wallet and a DApp, WalletConnect establishes a secure session through a relay server that enables encrypted communication, allowing users to interact with DApps directly from their wallets. 

The network's architecture ensures that messages are transmitted efficiently, maintaining a seamless user experience.​

The WalletConnect ecosystem comprises various stakeholders, including node operators, wallet providers and DApp developers. Node operators play a crucial role by maintaining the network's infrastructure and relaying messages. 

To incentivize participation, the network implements a rewards mechanism whereby node operators earn WCT tokens, based on their performance and contribution. Prominent organizations like Consensys, Ledger and Figment are among the network's node operators, underscoring its robustness and reliability.​

 is the native utility and governance token of the WalletConnect network. It has a total supply of 1 billion, 

Initially, WCT is nontransferable to ensure that tokens remain within the WalletConnect ecosystem, supporting its focus on network functionality and development. Based on discussions within the community, transfers will be enabled based on community consensus and future governance decisions.

Where to buy the WalletConnect token (WCT)

 on Bybit Spot, and as a Perpetual contract with up to 75x 

. Bybit provides a secure and user-friendly platform for buying and selling WCT, allowing users to participate in the WalletConnect ecosystem. 

How to trade the WalletConnect token (WCT) on Bybit

Bybit's platform ensures efficient execution and provides various tools to assist users in their trading journey with ease.​ 

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WalletConnect (WCT): Bridging web3 beyond wallets and DApps

Circle has launched the Circle Payments Network (CPN), a global payment solution designed to streamline cross-border transactions using stablecoins like USDC and EURC for real-time settlement. 

The S&P 500 rose 2.51% as investor confidence improved following President Trump’s support for Fed Chair Powell and hints of easing U.S.-China trade tensions, despite tempered optimism and Tesla’s earnings miss. Gold rebounds toward $3,400 as the US Dollar weakens and investor caution lingers over US-China trade and Fed concerns. Technicals suggest a possible pullback, with focus shifting to upcoming S&P Global PMI data. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, rose 7.46%, with Bitcoin and Ether up 4.68% and 7.70%, respectively, in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is DEEP, up 122.1%, following the launch of DeepBook v3.1 on Sui, which unlocks permissionless pools, enhanced balance management, and cost-efficiency for DeFi.

DeepBook (DEEP), launched on July 12, 2023,  is Sui’s native liquidity layer, using a central limit order book to enable high-throughput, low-slippage, and low-fee trading. 

, introduces several key upgrades: permissionless pools, revamped fee mechanics, and enhanced balance management. These changes make DeepBook more accessible, composable, and cost-efficient for DeFi users. Permissionless pools allow anyone to create custom trading pairs, while the enhanced balance manager supports third-party liquidations and improves protocol stability and user experience.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

, a global payment solution designed to streamline cross-border transactions using stablecoins like USDC and EURC for real-time settlement. CPN offers faster, programmable, secure, and always-available money movement for financial institutions. It supports services like invoice payments, remittances, treasury services, and payroll payouts. Over 20 design partners, including dLocal, WorldRemit, and BVNK, are contributing to building a more efficient global payments infrastructure.

Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $719.2M in total inflows, with $654.1M from non-GBTC funds and $65.1M from GBTC.

 its incentivized testnet, allowing users to earn $SO tokens by testing its cross-chain lending platform. By supplying and borrowing assets across chains and completing quests, participants earn "Seeds," which will convert to $SO at TGE. Powered by LayerZero, Soul aims to unify liquidity across blockchains.

Beginner

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Circle launches Circle Payments Network for faster, secure global transactions using stablecoins

VeChain (VET) is a blockchain platform focused on sustainability, using eco-friendly technology to support green initiatives across industries and drive a more sustainable future.

Sustainability is now the name of the game across many industries. The blockchain industry is one of them, with several projects aiming to reduce the energy impact of their operations or support green causes in other ways. However, on closer inspection, sustainability has received much less attention in the world of blockchain technology than many people may assume. Indeed, the industry's two leading data portals, CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, have no "Sustainability" or similar category, despite coming up with hundreds of other classifications.

Some smaller-cap projects outside of the top 100, such as 

 (IOTA), do focus on supporting environmental causes. But in the entire list of top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, only one project can confidently be described as having sustainability as its key pillar — 

With a market cap of $2 billion (as of the time of writing on Apr 22, 2025), VeChain stands head and shoulders above any other crypto project in the sustainability niche. The project has been fully operational since 2018, and is among the oldest environmentally focused blockchain initiatives. In short, if we talk about sustainability and blockchain, it would be disingenuous not to mention VeChain and its 

Having championed green blockchain causes since 2018, VeChain announced a significant upgrade initiative in late 2024 to be rolled out in stages during 2025. Called Renaissance, it’s envisioned to further solidify VeChain's position as the leader of eco-friendly blockchain use and introduce a host of technical improvements. In fact, 2025 is the year of the most fundamental upgrade to this notable industry player in its entire history on the market, so it's precisely the time to revisit this project in our coverage.

VeChain (VET) is a decentralized project designed to support sustainability-focused blockchain use cases across various industry verticals.

 The company was first conceptualized and founded as a blockchain project in 2015 by Chinese technology professional Sunny Lu. It launched its Layer 1 network, VeChainThor (VTHO), in mid-2018, becoming one of the first decentralized initiatives to support eco-friendly applications on-chain. The VeChainThor network features low transaction fees and high levels of scalability.

For years, the VeChain blockchain has remained probably the leading decentralized platform in the niche of sustainability. As of April 2025, it retains the leadership position, and is ranked 56th among all cryptocurrencies, with a market cap of $2 billion.

VeChain's sustainable blockchain technology

Many blockchains claiming to support environmental causes typically use the 

, which is indeed much more energy-efficient than the power-hungry 

 (BTC). By using PoS, these blockchains have boldly announced that their energy use is much lower than Bitcoin's. While this is true, these platforms are essentially general-purpose networks that don't specifically design their operations with any particular sustainability use case in mind.

Instead of these two typical consensus mechanisms, the VeChainThor blockchain uses 

 (PoA), touted to be even more energy-efficient than the standard PoS employed by 

 chains. In a typical PoA consensus, a smaller number of validators with "authority" — i.e., a history of reliable behavior on the network — are entrusted to process blocks. This is in contrast to PoS, whereby many validators take part in the staking contest to outperform each other in terms of token holdings. They then receive the right to validate the next block, and have to constantly align their consensus process with other 

As a result, PoS is usually less energy-efficient than PoA. VeChain's PoA model elegantly combines efficient processing, minimal energy use and high levels of enterprise-grade security.

The VeChainThor blockchain network's processing engine also features compatibility with the 

 (EVM), making cross-chain communication with the Ethereum world much easier for VeChain developers and 

PoA block validation isn’t the only sustainability-minded feature of VeChain. Unlike many other popular chains, VeChain also directly enables sustainability use cases, primarily by utilizing its tamperproof and transparent data-tracking mechanism. Thus, enterprises across different industries can track and reliably verify the origin of goods and their sustainability status for eco-friendly supply chain management. For instance, supermarket chains can use the platform to track and verify the carbon footprint of the produce they source; logistics companies can calculate the overall emissions generated along their supply chains; and fashion brands can track sustainable sourcing of materials used for their product lines.

Besides its own blockchain, the project also offers a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, VeChain ToolChain, to help businesses integrate VeChain's technology into their business processes via standardized smart contract services.

To further position itself as a champion of sustainability, VeChain launched 

 represents an on-chain ecosystem of DApps that reward VeChain users for completing various eco-friendly tasks, such as using reusable coffee cups, shopping for organic products, picking litter off streets and more. VeBetterDAO is the project’s foray into the individual consumer side of environmentalism, which complements the VeChain platform’s long-standing sustainability features for the enterprise world.

In late 2024, VeChain first announced its planned multi-stage upgrade, Renaissance, to make the platform even more efficient. Its changes are envisioned to take place gradually throughout 2025, and possibly beyond. The Renaissance upgrade touches many parts of the platform, with three key areas involved — a new VeChain staking and node model, technical updates and changes to the dual token mechanism. We'll cover the first two areas below, and the changes to VeChain’s tokenomics in the next section.

VeChain’s PoA block validation model uses a group of 101 trusted Authority Masternodes (AMs) who will fully transition to Validators under the new Renaissance model by December 2025. Each Authority Masternode is approved by the VeChain Foundation. These nodes are responsible for generating transaction blocks. You’ll need to 

 at least 25 million VET to participate in block production, which occurs in fixed 14-day cycles.

Under the platform’s pre-Renaissance model, there are two more types of specialized nodes — Economic and X-Nodes — who stake their tokens to a selected AM/Validator and participate in 

 on the platform. After the Renaissance upgrade is fully rolled out, Economic nodes and X-Nodes will be replaced by a tiered system of Delegator nodes.

Delegators will need to stake a certain amount of VET tokens to mint Delegator 

, which will entitle them to different grades of staking reward multipliers. The more you stake, the higher grade of NFT you receive, and the higher your staking rewards will be. When blocks are produced, AMs/Validators will receive 30% of the total block reward, with the remaining 70% going to holders of the Delegator NFTs.

The image below shows the new Delegator NFT–tiered model, with minimum VET staking requirements and reward multipliers.

While the VeChainThor network is EVM-compatible, there are still differences between its technical parameters and the standard EVM used by Ethereum. For this reason, the Renaissance upgrade aims to reach full EVM compatibility, including implementing the JSON-RPC (

remote procedure call) extensively employed within the Ethereum blockchain.

As part of the Renaissance upgrade, the project will also introduce a new set of tools to achieve more seamless cross-chain capabilities. This will involve integrating new 

The VeChain token model has always been based on two cryptocurrencies: VET and VTHO. VET is the 

 that acts as the main means of value storage and transfer on the platform, while VTHO is used to pay for gas. Now, the Renaissance upgrade also changes the way the dual-token mechanism operates.

Before the upgrade fully kicks in, VTHO is still generated by simply holding VET. After the Renaissance, only staked VET will generate new VTHO for the holder. This should better align VTHO with the active participation of users on the platform. VTHO's inflation rate will also be cut by over 70%, as its issuance will be aligned to a new emission model that considers the total amount of VET staked on the platform.

To further reduce the inflationary properties of VTHO, 100% of all base transaction fees on the network, which are all paid with VTHO, will be 

VET is the platform’s value transfer and storage token. It’s also used for governance and access to various features and apps on the network. VET is a supply-capped token with a max supply of just over 86.7 billion. These properties will not change following the Renaissance upgrade.

VTHO, which is used to pay for gas fees on VeChainThor, is an inflationary token with an uncapped supply. It currently has a total supply of almost 88,7 billion. As noted above, after Renaissance, VTHO will be generated via staking only, and will feature a burn mechanism to reduce its inflation rate.

 as a swap pair with USDT, and on the Derivatives market as the 

In addition, you can take advantage of Bybit’s event dedicated to the VET token to grab a share of a 

. New users can earn VET rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 5,000 VET, or by depositing at least 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of VET via their first Spot trade using their Bybit account. Meanwhile, existing users can also qualify for rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of VET on the Bybit Spot market. The event runs through Apr 28, 2025, 9AM UTC.

As of Apr 23, 2025, the VET token is trading at $0.02576, which is 90.8% lower than its ATH of $0.281 on Apr 19, 2021, and 1,243.2% higher than its ATL of $0.001917 on Mar 13, 2020.

Long-term price forecasts for VET are mostly bullish. DigitalCoinPrice 

 of $0.088 in 2027 and $0.14 in 2030, while PricePrediction 

In the long term, VET might even rise to $1, at least according to PricePrediction’s forecast. Its portal is highly optimistic, estimating that VET will hit the $1 mark in 2034.

You might consider investing in the VeChain token VET based on the following:

When Sunny Lu created VeChain in 2015, his vision focused on sustainability issues. VeChain's work in this area has led to the creation of the first decentralized network truly dedicated to making a tangible environmental impact. The entire VeChain ecosystem — including the VeChainThor blockchain platform, VeBetterDAO and VeChain Toolchain — continues to serve as a significant enabler of sustainable technology in the business world.

Now, with the Renaissance upgrade being rolled out for the duration of 2025, VeChain aims to solidify its leadership in this sphere. With the Renaissance upon us, it's hard to see any blockchain platform that could challenge VeChain in the area of sustainability anytime soon.

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What is VeChain (VET): Building a sustainable future for all

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Altcoins

Crypto

Litecoin has always been a top crypto for various reasons. Here are the ins and outs of Litecoin. Dive in and decipher LTC's prospects.

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Little more than a decade has passed since the cryptocurrency market first emerged. Its growth has been exponential, with the market capitalization of Bitcoin alone surpassing $524 billion as of May 23, 2023. Even with the creation of thousands of cryptocurrencies aimed at solving various problems, Bitcoin has continued to dominate the market. 

, such as Litecoin, are still in use today, despite debates about their antiquated concept. Litecoin has recently attracted the market's attention once again due to its upcoming halving event.

Despite its lack of support for smart contracts, and characteristics largely similar to those of Bitcoin, Litecoin has remained in the top 20 cryptos in terms of

. More recently, Litecoin has managed to overtake Polkadot (and meme coin Shiba Inu) to claim number 13 on the list.

What is Litecoin — and why has its valuation remained so high among thousands of other cryptocurrencies? In this article, we’ll discuss what Litecoin is, its history and how it works.

The Litecoin network was founded on Oct 13, 2011, and was originally created as a fork of Bitcoin (BTC) to improve on three main issues faced by the Bitcoin network — speed, scalability and centralization.

Litecoin is designed to be an ideal digital assets payment method for merchants and consumers, providing instant transaction confirmations. It uses a

 (PoW) consensus to secure the network, similar to Bitcoin. However, the

 used by its network is different from that of Bitcoin. Litecoin uses 

, while Bitcoin uses SHA-256. This will be discussed in more detail.

Whenever miners complete a block, they earn LTC rewards. However, as with Bitcoin

, the mining rewards for Litecoin decrease over time. This mechanism is built into the Litecoin protocol to control the issuance rate and ensure a limited supply of the cryptocurrency. Based on the previous halving event on Aug 5, 2019, Litecoin now offers 12.5 LTC per completed block. The next halving event will take place around Aug 3, 2023, and will decrease mining rewards to 6.25 LTC per completed block. 

The upcoming Litecoin halving event has generated significant buzz and anticipation within the cryptocurrency community, especially since it’s just a couple of months away. Scheduled to occur at regular intervals of approximately four years, the halving event is an integral part of Litecoin's monetary policy. 

The primary implication of the Litecoin halving event is a reduction in the rate at which new Litecoins are created. This scarcity mechanism is designed to curb inflation by providing a deflationary aspect to the cryptocurrency. With each halving, the reward for miners diminishes, which may potentially impact their profitability. Consequently, this event has been known to trigger changes in the mining landscape, as miners reevaluate their strategies and assess the viability of their operations.

Historically, Litecoin halving events have had significant effects on the price and market sentiment surrounding the cryptocurrency. For example, in the months preceding its 2019 halving event, LTC price experienced a surge, growing from $30 in January to a high of $141.82 on Jun 23, 2019. 

Likewise, before its 2015 halving event, LTC price rose from a low of $1.45 in May to $7.66 on Jul 9, 2015.

Does Past Performance Indicate Future Results?

Previous halvings have often been associated with bullish trends, as reduced supply coupled with sustained demand has led to upward price movements. However, it’s crucial to note that past performance is not indicative of future results, and the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and influenced by numerous factors.

As the next Litecoin halving event approaches, market participants and enthusiasts are eagerly observing its potential impact. Traders and investors closely monitor price movements and analyze market conditions to gauge the short- and long-term implications of the halving. 

Additionally, the event often generates renewed interest in Litecoin, attracting newcomers to the cryptocurrency space who wish to capitalize on potential price surges or explore the technology behind this established digital asset.

The upcoming Litecoin halving event represents an important milestone in the cryptocurrency's journey. The event's effects on mining profitability and market sentiment remain to be seen, but it is undoubtedly capturing the attention of the cryptocurrency community as they await the next chapter in Litecoin's development.

Litecoin was specifically designed to reduce the amount of time it takes to validate a new block, and to uphold storage efficiency. In this section, we’ll take a look at some of its properties.

Litecoin has a transaction processing speed of 54

, which is significantly higher than Bitcoin’s transaction processing speed of 5 TPS.

The block mining time for Litecoin is two and a half minutes, which is four times faster than the ten minutes it takes for Bitcoin to generate blocks. As a result, Litecoin’s network is able to achieve a higher throughput.

 is used to power Litecoin’s PoW consensus mechanism, giving the network a lower barrier to entry and allowing more individuals to participate in the Litecoin mining process. 

This contributes to the network’s decentralization, given that mining power is no longer concentrated among bigger players who can afford expensive equipment such as

The fee structure of Litecoin is 1/50th the size of Bitcoin’s, which drastically reduces transaction costs.

Litecoin’s Scrypt hashing is designed to be more secure than alternative functions against hardware brute-force attacks. Even after a decade, Litecoin hasn’t suffered any major exploits, demonstrating its reliability as a cryptocurrency.

 (MimbleWimble Extension Block) upgrade allows users to opt in as necessary to conduct private transactions, and transaction anonymity is guaranteed — so that a transaction amount is known only to the sender and receiver.

 to learn more about how Litecoin remains among the top 20 cryptocurrencies even after a decade.

Litecoin was founded in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a computer science graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and former Google employee. Addressing Bitcoin’s slow transaction speed and lack of scalability, Lee decided to create a “lighter” version of Bitcoin that would facilitate faster transactions and greater scalability, along with lower transaction fees.

In 2013, Lee joined Coinbase as the Director of Engineering. When this news reached the market, the price of Litecoin increased tenfold, from $3 to $30.

When Litecoin's price peaked at €300 in December 2017, Lee

, undermining investor confidence and sparking rumors of Litecoin price manipulation. However, Lee made it clear that his concern for a potential conflict of interest as a result of his growing influence over Litecoin was the reason for his actions. More details can be found

Lee left Coinbase in 2017, and is currently heading the Litecoin Foundation, focused on the development of Litecoin.

Like Bitcoin, Litecoin operates on an open-source blockchain that isn't under the control of a single central authority. To ensure that new Litecoin transactions don’t contradict the blockchain's transaction history, each Litecoin node operator has a copy of every blockchain, and miners assist in processing new transactions by including them in recently mined blocks.

 of 84 million LTC on its total supply (four times that of Bitcoin).

Litecoin mining can result in orphaned blocks. When two miners complete a block at nearly the same time and the chain initially accepts both, but later rejects one, orphaned blocks are created. The low block confirmation time results in a large number of orphaned blocks. The Segregated Witness (

) protocol tackles this problem and reduces the number of orphaned blocks.

Litecoin uses a hashing algorithm called Scrypt. The Litecoin development team initially chose Scrypt to prevent ASIC miners from controlling mining. ASIC mining was initially less suited to the Scrypt mining algorithm's higher memory requirements, which increased opportunities for other miners, including those who used

 technology. However, ASIC-based mining with Scrypt support has evolved over time. Therefore, due to inferior computational capabilities, CPU- and GPU-based miners no longer possess useful LTC mining equipment, as ASICs produce significantly more hashes per second.

 facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrencies on different blockchains, or cross-chain trading. This adds interoperability to the Litecoin blockchain.

A pre-mine, which enables the developers of a blockchain-based cryptocurrency to mine coins before the project is made public, was largely avoided with Litecoin. Pre-mining was initially used to pay the project's founders and finance its creation.

Many community members at the time desired alternative currencies with a fair launch, similar to that of Bitcoin. When Litecoin first launched, Lee addressed these issues, stating that it’s "against the decentralized vision of Bitcoin" for one person or group to control a significant number of coins and use them however they see fit.

One week prior to Litecoin going live, Lee made its source and binary codes available so that users could test mine it. A poll on the Bitcointalk forum was used to choose the time of launch so that users could select the time that best suited them. Since everyone was aware of the launch date, and only needed to make a small change to their files to begin mining actual Litecoin, everyone was able to mine simultaneously.

However, Litecoin still had a modest pre-mine. The genesis block — that is, the first one on the network — was pre-mined with a total of 150 LTC, with two additional blocks mined to confirm its validity. The reward for mining one block when Litecoin first launched was 50 LTC, which was essentially worthless at the time.

In a blockchain, transaction data is stored in blocks. The block is made available to any system participant (referred to as a 

) who requests to see it. Litecoin miners verify the block by using mining software to solve difficult mathematical puzzles, in order to be granted permission to add new transactions to the blockchain. After a miner confirms the block, it’s added to the blockchain and the miner is rewarded with LTC.

Litecoin can be mined using ASIC mining devices with pre-installed mining software. On the other hand, if you're mining with a CPU or GPU you must choose your own program, while keeping security in mind. A software product might contain malware, and other shady, if not malicious, activities should also be on your radar. 

Once you've chosen your mining equipment, you’ll need to decide whether to mine alone or in a group. If you mine by yourself, you run the risk of going a long time without finding a block. However, if you succeed, you keep the entire LTC block reward, plus fees. Keep in mind that you can only achieve this if you have sufficient hash power, which requires multiple ASICs.

Furthermore, if you use a GPU or CPU to mine LTC on your own, there’s almost no chance that you’ll ever make any money. The benefits of pool mining outweigh those of solo mining, but the rewards are divided among the pool members according to the hash power they’ve contributed.

As of May 23, 2023, the two largest cryptocurrencies in the market are Bitcoin and Ethereum, accounting for 44.47% and 18.68% of

There are specific differences between Litecoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum, particularly in terms of consensus mechanism, security and scalability. To learn more, please refer to

You can trade Litecoin on most cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bybit. Bybit offers both the

 Perpetual Contracts. You can buy LTC with the USDT stablecoin via a Perpetual contract with leverage. Simply fund your verified account with USDT, or first convert another cryptocurrency to USDT. 

Even though Litecoin has been overshadowed by Bitcoin, it still ranks among the top 20 cryptocurrencies — even as thousands of new cryptos have been added. This is a good indicator of LTC’s strength. Furthermore, with the upcoming halving event, Litecoin is likely to gain even more traction in the crypto market. Given the highly capable technical team behind Litecoin, we can certainly look forward to seeing continued development and innovation. That said, we would still recommend you do your own research before investing any of your money in cryptocurrencies.

Explained: What Is Litecoin (LTC) and How Does It Work?

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