Get Ready for Litecoin Cash the Upcoming Litecoin Fork

We have seen a numerous forks in cryptocurrency chains over the past few years. From Bitcoin Cash, to Ethereum Classic and from Zclassic to Bitcoin Gold, developers have been developing their own visions of a cryptocurrency.

However, one cryptocurrency that has so far escaped that guise was Litecoin, the second oldest cryptocurrency in the ecosystem. That is until now.

According to a post on the Bitcointalk forum, the developers plan to fork the Litecoin network and create a competing cryptocurrency called Litecoin cash. The fork will take place on the 19th of February.

So what is Litecoin cash and what does it hope to achieve? Let's take a look.

Main Benefits of Litecoin Cash

The developers wanted to create a coin that would use the SHA 256 hashing algorithm. They noted that there is currently a great deal of spare hashing power that is available for mining based on SHA 256. Currently, there are not many alternative chains that they can turn that hashing power to.

This is mainly because there are no currently available SHA 256 coins that have reasonable difficulty adjustments. If they do chose to mine one of the chains, then they will be paid with a crypto coin within 10 minute block times.

Although the developers claim that Litecoin Cash (LCC) will have lower transaction fees and better difficulty adjustments than Litecoin, the main reason for the fork is to provide a better SHA 256 coin.

They noted that the vogue recently has been to fork Bitcoin with numerous Bitcoin forks already planned for 2018. They wanted to use this as an opportunity to give back to the Litecoin community.

They stated that this is not an official Litecoin project and they are merely using Litecoin in the name to keep up with the tradition of other cryptocurrency forks.

There also seems to be quite a strong team working on the Litecoin Cash fork. There are currently 4 members with a broad range of experience. You can read more about the team here.

Overview of the Fork

According to the announcement, the fork will be changing the hashing algorithm of Litecoin to SHA 256. This is currently the hashing algorithm that is being used on the Bitcoin network and is different from the Scrypt algorithm on Litecoin.

The fork will occur when Litecoin reaches block 1,371,111. This is expected to be around the 19th of February. There will be a claim ratio of 10:1 which implies that for every 1 Litecoin that you hold, you will receive 10 of Litecoin cash (LCC).

There will also be a minor premine of only 1% of the coins that will be used for the development fund. They will also release a bootstrap of the blockchain so that people can download the wallet before mining.  

In terms of the mining specifics, it can be done on older Bitcoin mining hardware and the protocol will set a target of 2.5 minutes per block. The difficulty will be recalculated after every block using the darkgravity V3 algorithm that is currently in use at Dash.

The protocol will also have a "slow start control" that will be built in which will aim to circumvent any sort of unfair advantage that may be in place from the early miners. Block reward will start at only 1.25 LCC and increase to 250 over the first 400 blocks.

How to Claim your LCC

The developers went through an extensive overview of how to claim your LCC in their FAQ section of their website. If you hold Litecoin in your own wallet at block 1,371,111, you will automatically hold an additional 10 LCC.

However, there is an important point to note. This only applies to wallets where you hold the private key. Hence, in wallets that are held on an exchange, you have no automatic rights to the forked coins. Exchanges often don't honour some of the lesser known forks.

If you wanted to claim your Litecoin cash from the fork then you are better suited to hold the coins in an offline wallet just prior to the block in question. They also suggest that if you hold your Litecoin in a hardware wallet such as ledger that you move it to a desktop wallet just prior to the fork and then move it back.

If you currently have your coins in a paper wallet or desktop wallet form, then all you have to do is make sure that they are present during the fork and you will be entitle to the new LCC. The team will communicate further updates such as supporting services, online wallets and mining pools in due course.

Further Incentive to HODL LTC?

Litecoin is indeed a great coin to hold and has a strong developer community behind it. Litecoin is also the brainchild of Charlie Lee who is highly influential in the crypto community.

Given that the Hodler will now have the benefit of an additional 10 LCC for each of the LTC that they own, it becomes that much more compelling. Moreover, the Litecoin cash concept is an interesting one in its own right and could be an attractive SHA 256 alternative to Bitcoin.

Hence, keep monitoring the webpage and team's social channels for more information and as always, watch out for scams asking for private keys.