How many confirmations does Litecoin need?

Most exchanges credit LTC deposits after 2–6 confirmations (5–15 minutes). Because Litecoin blocks come four times as often as Bitcoin's, even conservative 12-confirmation policies resolve in about half an hour.

Can I send Litecoin to a Bitcoin address?

No — they are separate networks, and modern wallets will reject the mismatch. The one historical trap: Litecoin's deprecated 3… P2SH format overlapped visually with Bitcoin addresses, which is why Litecoin moved to M… prefixes. Always match asset and network before sending.

Why are Litecoin fees so low?

Litecoin's block capacity comfortably exceeds its transaction demand, so the fee auction that drives Bitcoin's spikes rarely activates. Blocks every 2.5 minutes provide four times Bitcoin's throughput headroom, and typical usage leaves plenty of slack — fees have held at cents for years.

What is LTC used for?

LTC is the Litecoin network's native asset — it pays miner fees and serves as the value being transferred. Its niche is payments and transfers: cheap, fast, and supported virtually everywhere crypto is accepted, from exchanges to point-of-sale processors.

How many Litecoins are there?

Litecoin's supply caps at 84 million LTC — exactly four times Bitcoin's 21 million. New coins come from the block reward, which halves every four years; the August 2023 halving cut it to 6.25 LTC per block, with the next halving due in 2027.

Is Litecoin a good way to send money?

For moving value between platforms or people, LTC is one of the most cost-effective established rails: cent-level fees, 5–30 minute settlement, and universal support. The trade-off versus a stablecoin is price exposure while in transit — LTC's dollar value floats, USDT's doesn't.

Where can I buy Litecoin instantly?

Anytime Capital sells LTC with debit cards from all major US banks, Apple Pay, Google Pay, credit cards, wires, and cash at our branches. Verified card purchases typically complete in minutes, delivered to any Litecoin address — including your own free Anytime Capital wallet.

Crypto network guide

The Litecoin Network, Explained

Q: How long does a Litecoin transfer take?

Blocks arrive every 2.5 minutes, and most platforms credit LTC after 2–6 confirmations — so 5 to 30 minutes in practice. Litecoin's fee market is rarely congested, which makes its confirmation times unusually predictable compared with Bitcoin's.

Quick answer

Litecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrency networks, running without interruption since 2011. Built from Bitcoin's code with 2.5-minute blocks and an 84 million coin cap, it settles transfers roughly four times faster than Bitcoin for fees of a few cents — which keeps it a favorite for payments.

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Updated August 2026 · Reviewed by the Anytime Capital trading desk

Litecoin at a glance

Launched: 2011
Consensus: Proof of Work (Scrypt)
Block time: ~2.5 minutes
Typical transfer time: 5–30 minutes
Typical network fee: Under a cent – cents
Native asset: Litecoin (LTC)

Network fee: Typically $0.01–$0.05 per transaction through 2025–2026 — consistently among the cheapest Proof of Work transfers. Third-party network figures, not Anytime Capital pricing — our pricing is on the fees & limits page.

How long does a Litecoin transfer take?

Litecoin blocks arrive every 2.5 minutes — four times Bitcoin's cadence — and most platforms credit deposits after 2–6 confirmations, so 5–30 minutes is the normal range. Fees have stayed at a few cents per transaction for years, making LTC a workhorse for plain value transfers.

Compare every chain on one page: how long crypto transfers take on every major network.

Why do people still use Litecoin?

Reliability and cost. Litecoin has produced blocks continuously for over a decade, its fees have stayed at pennies through every market cycle, and every exchange, ATM, and payment processor supports it. When the job is "move value from A to B cheaply on a battle-tested chain," LTC remains one of the most rational answers — and it consistently ranks among the most-used networks for actual payments.

At our branches, Litecoin is a staple for cash-to-crypto customers precisely because the economics are predictable: the network fee on a $500 transfer is effectively invisible, and confirmations arrive fast enough to finish before you leave the counter.

How does Litecoin differ from Bitcoin?

Litecoin began as a fork of Bitcoin's code with three deliberate changes: 2.5-minute blocks (4x faster confirmations), a 84 million coin cap (4x Bitcoin's), and the Scrypt hashing algorithm instead of SHA-256. Everything else — Proof of Work security, UTXO accounting, halving cycles every four years — mirrors Bitcoin's design.

Litecoin has also served as Bitcoin's proving ground: SegWit activated on Litecoin before Bitcoin in 2017, and Litecoin added optional privacy via MWEB (MimbleWimble Extension Blocks) in 2022 — a feature Bitcoin doesn't have.

Are there stablecoins on Litecoin?

No — like Bitcoin, Litecoin's base layer is intentionally simple and carries no mainstream token standard, so there is no USDT-on-Litecoin or USDC-on-Litecoin. If someone asks for a stablecoin "on Litecoin," the request is confused and worth re-confirming before any money moves; the sender almost certainly means TRON, Ethereum, or Solana.

What Litecoin offers instead is its own asset as the transfer medium: buy LTC, send it cheaply, and the recipient sells or holds. For dollar-denominated transfers where price movement in transit matters, a stablecoin on a supported network is the better tool — see our stablecoin networks guide.

Which Litecoin address format should you use?

Modern wallets, including ours, default to native SegWit (ltc1…) addresses for the lowest fees. Legacy L… addresses remain universally compatible, and M… addresses carry multisig scripts. All formats hold the same LTC; the only user-facing difference is fee weight and whether a very old service recognizes ltc1.

Default choice: ltc1 (native SegWit) — cheapest to spend from
Maximum backward compatibility: L… (legacy)
M… addresses: multisig/script — normal, not an error
One caution: Litecoin M… addresses and Bitcoin 3… addresses look similar — always confirm which network you're on

Stablecoins on Litecoin

No mainstream stablecoins run on Litecoin. To move dollar-pegged value, use USDT or USDC on a supporting network — see stablecoins & their networks.

What does a Litecoin address look like?

Litecoin address formats
Format	Looks like	Notes
Legacy	Starts with L	Original format, universally supported
Script (P2SH)	Starts with M	Multisig; older 3… format deprecated
Native SegWit	Starts with ltc1	Lowest fees; the modern default

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The Anytime Capital wallet supports native Litecoin — a favorite of our branch customers for fast, cheap cash-to-crypto transfers.

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