A few years after the launch of Bitcoin, Charlee Lee launched his own version of the cryptocurrency. The development task was not a difficult one, as Lee simply took Bitcoin Core’s code and tweaked the block time and mining algorithms to make the new coin.

However, as the years go by, Litecoin’s development team is now focused on adding features exclusive to this cryptocurrency. Keeping this in mind, the Litecoin project has updated the core version of its codebase and after the community revision, it is preparing for release.

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Litecoin Core 0.15.1rc1 has been released! ?

This is a release candidate. Please help us test it. https://t.co/YyUmTTMnw0

Binaries: https://t.co/ksqliWsJfY or https://t.co/h3kJ0gbOZd

Thanks @thrasher_au! https://t.co/C8qBFd46NQ

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) February 8, 2018

By the end of 2017, Litecoin had attracted the attention of the crypto community as the coin’s value spiked to $371. Litecoin appreciated by 5,280 percent in 2017 alone, dwarfing even Bitcoin’s 1400 percent rise in the same period. However, the coin could not hold its peak and its value started to fall gradually. Currently, the coin is struggling to maintain value at around $150 amid the recent market crash.

The coin has also attracted its fair share of controversy, as some blamed Charlee Lee for creating undue pressure on the popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to list his coin. Lee also announced in a public statement that he sold all his assets in Litecoin after the coin achieved its peak.

Watch my talk from August of 2014, 3.5 yrs ago. "Litecoin: From Genesis to the Moon" https://t.co/isoEwdNgUO

Litecoin has done extremely well on the first 3 steps and we are now focused on merchant adoption. And for that we need LTC merchant processing support. #PayWithLitecoin pic.twitter.com/QkDMlkOsFe

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) February 7, 2018

The core features of Litecoin are very similar to those of Bitcoin. It replicates Bitcoin even better than Bitcoin Cash does. For instance, Bitcoin Cash does not include Segregated Witness upgrade, while Litecoin activated the feature before even Bitcoin did.

Litecoin’s main focus is to make crypto assets suitable as a means of payment – a feature that Bitcoin is struggling with.

With the release of LitePay, many merchant payment processors are integrating support for Litecoin payments. Charlee Lee recently tweeted a list of merchant processors that now support Litecoin – the list includes Aliant Payments, BTCPay, BitcoinPay, and many more.

Merchant processors:
Aliant Payments @AliantPayment
BTCPay @BtcpayServer
BitcoinPay @bitcoin_pay
Coin Gate @CoinGatecom
Coin Payments @CoinPaymentsNET
Cointopay @Cointopay
GoCoin @GoCoin
LitePal @LitePalOfficial
LitePay @LitePayInc
… and more to come!

???#PayWithLitecoin pic.twitter.com/z6kppdyp5J

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) February 7, 2018