Often referred to as "the silver to Bitcoin's gold," Litecoin was created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer. It is a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, with certain modifications to improve transaction speed and reduce block generation time. <br><br>Litecoin's key differentiator lies in its ability to process transactions more quickly than Bitcoin, making it an attractive choice for everyday digital payments. The shorter block time of 2.5 minutes and the adoption of the Scrypt hashing algorithm facilitate faster confirmations, making Litecoin a practical alternative for microtransactions.