Litecoin Foundation’s managing director shares his thoughts on decentralized money

Litecoin (LTC), often known as “the silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” has been round for nearly 11 years — which is sort of a feat contemplating a good quantity of cryptocurrencies go bust inside 12 months of launching. Cointelegraph spoke with the Litecoin Basis’s managing director, Alan Austin, about why he thinks Litecoin’s core utility is serving as a dependable technique of fee.

As instructed by Austin, a lot of his imaginative and prescient for Litecoin is drawn from private expertise:

“After I completed grad faculty, I labored with startup expertise firms and actual property. And one of many issues I did was managing accounts for corporations like Financial institution of America and Fannie Mae, and it was stunning to see how outdated their expertise was and the way tough it was to get stuff accomplished.”

After the 2008 monetary disaster, Austin started shedding religion within the conventional monetary system. “Seeing how the large banks set totally different requirements for everybody at their discretion in terms of entry to cash, and the way now they have been those getting bailed out, it made me actually respect what blockchain expertise was attempting to do,” he instructed Cointelegraph.

Austin defined that Litecoin was created with many options and attributes just like Bitcoin (BTC). “For starters, it’s decentralized, and there have been no pre-mine tokens given to founders, making it a good launch. It additionally has a restricted provide, is very liquid and has very low charges. Furthermore, the blockchain has been on-line for 11 years with out downtime.” In line with Austin, the Litecoin growth staff primarily focuses on three efforts: onboarding enterprise partnerships, retailers and outreach for the Litecoin Card debit card.

“If you use stablecoins to pay for items, in actuality, all you’re doing is utilizing a digital model of fiat cash. Cryptocurrencies are risky, however no middlemen are taking a hefty fee or scrutinizing your transactions.”

With the launch of Litecoin’s new privateness layer, Austin mentioned that the coin has grow to be extra user-friendly for these eager on defending their knowledge. “It provides fungibility,” he mentioned. “If you go to pay with a bank card or arduous money, the service provider doesn’t understand how a lot money you’ve bought in your pocket, nor your checking account. However, say, in case you pay with Bitcoin, everybody can see that transaction and your pockets steadiness on the blockchain.” Austin explains that the brand new privateness layer on high of Litecoin solves the issue. “We’re permitting customers to cover their deal with and steadiness quantity when making funds. And it’s actually helpful for safeguarding folks’s privateness, such when receiving their payroll in crypto.”

Lastly, for Austin, the concept of Litecoin lies in its evolution as a brand new technique of fee and never a lot in capitalizing on the newest developments within the trade. “Our purpose proper now’s to type of construct gradual. We’ve been right here for years, and we’ve seen that in case you transfer too quick, the mission can implode on itself. So, we’re sticking to our purpose of creating Litecoin as a greater fee.”