Litecoin founder Charlie Lee last night used Twitter to post about the upcoming launch of a new payment processing service, in addition to the one that is to be launched in a few days.

Another payment processor for Litecoin. It's going to get a lot easier for merchants to accept LTC! @GoCoin @CoinPaymentsNET @AliantPayment @LitePayInc and now @LitePalOfficial #PayWithLitecoin https://t.co/fjvpeESpnX

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) February 4, 2018

The service is called LitePal. A tandem LitePal announcement said:

"LitePal is a Litecoin-first payment processor. We envision a cryptocurrency world where Litecoin is utilised by merchants from all over the world; one streamlined, simple, less confusing process. Thank you @SatoshiLite for creating the LTC we all love!"

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LitePal is expected to be released later this year. According to the official website, users will be able to use the service with PayPal, Western Union, Bitcoin and Litecoin, and the fees will be "bone chillingly low". Apart from the vaguely-worded landing page, no information is yet available regarding this service, so I suppose a 'watch this space' is in order.

The Litecoin community is already excited about the imminent launch of LitePay, which is going to make Litecoin useable anywhere that Visa is. It will convert all  Payments  Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. Read this Term to/from US dollars immediately, and all deposits will incur "a simply, flat 1% settlement charge" as opposed to the 3% charged by credit cards, according to the official website.

Palwasha Saaim, a research analyst at Lombardi Financial, explained the repercussions to the Sunday Express: “It would allow businesses to accept Litecoin without worrying about price volatility. Payments would be processed by LitePay instantaneously and settled directly with their banks. Take note that BitPay is currently charging about $5.00 transaction fees for processing Bitcoin transactions that take ages to confirm. The best part is that Litecoin users will be able to convert litecoins to dollars and vice versa through their Visa-compatible LitePay cards, which will be usable at all ATMs or businesses that support Visa payments.”

Litecoin is currently number 6 in the cryptocurrency rankings, and is worth over $9 billion dollars at market. It is popular because it is almost identical to Bitcoin, but solves many of its shortcomings. It is designed to be faster and lighter and it achieves this by generating new blocks at four times the speed and having a coin limit four times as large.

Institutions that decide to use cryptocurrency in some format always begin with Bitcoin, as that is the most well-established and valuable, but Litecoin is usually amongst the second wave of coins that said institutions add in the event that cryptocurrency works out for them. For example, Bloomberg Terminal added it in just this manner, and the two big Chicago exchanges that have been offering Bitcoin futures for a few months now are considering adding Litecoin too.

Litecoin was one of the first forks of the Bitcoin  Blockchain  Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term. It was created in 2011 by a former employee of Google named Charlie Lee. Interestingly, Lee gave up all of his own litecoins back in December, claiming that he was tired of being unfairly accused of a conflict of interest.

The price of Litecoin spiked drastically after Lee published his message about LitePal.