Litecoin’s blockchain network reached a new level of computing power and difficulty on January 25, 2023. The network’s hash rate hit an all-time high of 798.43 terahashes per second (TH/s) at block 2,411,048, while its difficulty hit a new high of 23,505,031 the next day.
LTC Hashrate Climbs 38% in 30 Days
The hashrate dedicated to the Litecoin network has increased significantly over the past 30 days. Computing power climbed 38% from 576 terahashes per second (TH/s) on December 28, 2022 to 798 TH/s on January 25, 2023. As of January 28, 2023, Litecoin’s hash rate is 691 TH/s, which is 20% higher than the previous month. The increase in hashrate has also been accompanied by a 34% increase in LTC’s value against the USD over the past 30 days.
Litecoin mining pools lead the way
Viabtc is currently the largest Litecoin mining pool with 192 TH/s, accounting for 27% of Litecoin’s total computing power. Other top mining pools in the network include F2pool (121 TH/s), Antpool (104 TH/s), Litecoinpool.org (77 TH/s), and Binance (69 TH/s). The five mining pools also participate in merged mining of Dogecoin (DOGE) through Auxiliary Proof-of-Work (AuxPoW).
Litecoin Halving and Difficulty Adjustment
Litecoin is one of the first proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies to halve the mining reward, reducing it from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC on or about August 3, 2023. The network’s difficulty increased to 23.5 million on Jan. 26 and has risen by 3.28% in the last three days. Difficulty is adjusted every 2,016 blocks, roughly every three days, to keep block times consistent. The difficulty has increased by 14.80% in the last month and by 32.41% in the past 90 days.
Litecoin’s Market Dominance and Popularity
Since its early days, Litecoin has lost most of its market dominance, having been the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the end of January 2014, but now ranks 17th. Interest in cryptocurrencies has also declined, with searches for “litecoin” dropping from a score of 100 in December 2017 to 3 today, according to the data. However, interest in cryptocurrencies has rebounded since late 2020 and has surged throughout 2021, with Nigeria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Slovenia seeing the most interest.