Litecoin was created by Charles Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer. Born in 1977, he worked at Google before joining Coinbase as Engineering Manager from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he founded the Litecoin Foundation and left Coinbase in 2017 to focus full-time on Litecoin development.

Key milestones include: October 2011 project inception, 2013 official launch, 2017 SegWit activation enabling Lightning Network, 2021 MWEB privacy upgrade, and 2025 marking its 14th anniversary with over 300 million transactions and 100% network uptime.

Litecoin uses Scrypt-based Proof of Work consensus with a 2.5-minute block time, four times faster than Bitcoin. It features SegWit for scalability, Lightning Network for fast transactions, MWEB for privacy, and supports merge mining with Dogecoin.

Litecoin has a fixed total supply of 84 million LTC, four times Bitcoin 21 million cap. Block rewards halve approximately every 4 years, currently at 6.25 LTC per block. The higher supply aims to better meet market demand and reduce deflation risk.

Litecoin operates through the Litecoin Foundation, a non-profit organization led by Charlie Lee as Managing Director. The project is community-driven with an open-source codebase on GitHub. Since 2023, Charlie Lee has stepped back from active development.

Primary use cases include peer-to-peer payments, daily transactions with lower fees than Bitcoin, remittances and cross-border payments. It is accepted by various merchants and serves as a store of value alternative, often viewed as digital silver to Bitcoin digital gold.