# Litecoin (LTC): D-Score 96/100 — Highly Decentralized

**BlockIndex D-Score: 96/100 (Highly Decentralized).** Litecoin (LTC) is a Layer 1 cryptocurrency using PoW consensus. Litecoin: Fast, low-cost proof-of-work Layer-1 payment blockchain using Scrypt mining and Bitcoin-derived UTXO architecture.

_Source: https://blockindex.ai/coin/ltc · Data by BlockIndex.AI · Updated 2026-06-19_

## D-Score breakdown (0-100, higher means more decentralized)
| Component | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Overall D-Score | 96 |
| Node distribution | 30 |
| Initial distribution | 25 |
| Governance | 21 |
| Age and history | 15 |
| Autonomy | 5 |

## Key facts
- Layer: Layer 1
- Consensus: PoW (Scrypt)
- Launch: Fair Launch (2011)
- Founder: Charlie Lee
- VC funded: No
- Max supply: 84,000,000
- Circulating: 77,295,071 (92.0%)

## Market data (as of 2026-06-19)
- Price: $43.48
- Market cap: $3.36B
- 24h volume: $186.45M
- 24h change: -1.72% · 7d change: +2.29%

## About
Litecoin (LTC) is a native Layer-1 cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee as a faster, lighter payment-oriented alternative to Bitcoin. The open-source client was released on GitHub on October 7, 2011, and the Litecoin Network went live on October 13, 2011. Built from the Bitcoin protocol lineage, Litecoin keeps the core design goal of decentralized peer-to-peer value transfer while adjusting key parameters for faster settlement and lower everyday transaction costs. Its practical emphasis has long been payments, micro-transactions, and point-of-sale use cases rather than complex smart-contract execution.

Technically, Litecoin is a proof-of-work blockchain using the Scrypt hashing algorithm and a UTXO transaction model. Its 2.5-minute target block time is substantially faster than Bitcoin's 10-minute cadence, enabling quicker confirmations for routine transfers. Litecoin has a hard-capped maximum supply of 84 million LTC, four times Bitcoin's supply cap, and has historically served as a production network for conservative protocol experimentation. SegWit activated on Litecoin in 2017, and MimbleWimble Extension Blocks later added opt-in privacy and fungibility features through an extension-block design.

Litecoin's adoption profile is strongest in payments and liquidity infrastructure. The supplied data describes it as one of the most widely accepted pure cryptocurrencies, with more than 2,000 merchants and stores accepting LTC globally as of January 2021. It is widely listed on centralized exchanges and supported by hardware, desktop, mobile, browser-extension, and custodial wallet options. Explorer and analytics coverage from services such as Blockchair, Cryptoid/Chainz, Tokenview, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, CryptoCompare, and Messari gives users and developers visibility into market and network activity.

Litecoin's monetary design is mining-based rather than token-sale based. The DScore extraction identifies no ICO, no formal premine, no venture-capital allocation, and no ongoing developer block-reward tax in the supplied data, though it notes that roughly 500,000 LTC were mined on day one by early miners after genesis. LTC issuance is constrained by the 84 million coin cap, and the provided market data lists a circulating supply of approximately 77.23 million LTC, or about 91.95% of the maximum supply. The latest supplied market snapshot shows a price of $47.46, market capitalization of about $3.66 billion, and 24-hour trading volume of about $411.96 million.

Governance is primarily off-chain and organized around open-source development rather than DAO voting. The Litecoin Foundation, a non-profit entity, works alongside the Litecoin Core Development team to support development and adoption, while no CEO, token-based DAO, or on-chain governance mechanism is identified in the supplied summaries. The project has a long operating history, no documented Litecoin-specific chain freeze in the supplied data, and no major protocol security incident listed. Future-facing development in the summary centers on privacy, fungibility, scalability, and broader functionality through efforts such as MWEB and LitVM-related cross-chain and smart-contract infrastructure.

## Links
- Website: https://litecoin.org/
- Whitepaper: N/A
- GitHub: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin

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About the D-Score: BlockIndex.AI rates decentralization from 0 to 100 across node distribution, initial distribution, governance, age and history, and autonomy. Methodology: https://blockindex.ai/dscore