Litecoin (LTC): what it is, the halving and how to mine it

Litecoin (LTC) is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, launched in 2011 as a “lighter” version of Bitcoin: it finds a block every 2.5 minutes, and since the halving in August 2023 the block reward has been 6.25 LTC. It is mined by ASIC miners on the Scrypt algorithm, which mine Dogecoin at the same time. The network's next halving is expected around July 2027, when the reward will drop to 3.125 LTC.

Summary

• Litecoin has a cap of 84 million LTC, four times more than Bitcoin, and halves the reward every 840,000 blocks (roughly 4 years).
• The Scrypt algorithm is mined by ASIC miners such as the Antminer L9 or ElphaPex DG1+. Every such machine also mines Dogecoin at the same time (merged mining).
• Today 1 GH/s earns 1,86 Kč from Litecoin and 11 Kč from Dogecoin a day – Litecoin makes up only about 15% of earnings.
• The 2027 halving will therefore reduce a Scrypt miner's total earnings by roughly 7–8%, not by half (at today's exchange rate and difficulty).

What is Litecoin

Litecoin was launched in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, then a Google engineer. He took Bitcoin's code and changed three things in it: faster blocks (2.5 minutes instead of 10), a total supply four times larger and a different mining algorithm – Scrypt instead of SHA-256.

For a long time Litecoin served as a testing ground for innovations that Bitcoin later adopted. In 2017 it activated SegWit before Bitcoin, and in 2022 it added optional confidential transactions via MWEB (MimbleWimble Extension Blocks). Today Litecoin is mainly a payment coin with low fees and a fifteen-year history.

How Litecoin is mined

Scrypt was designed to be memory-intensive so that it could not easily be turned into specialised chips. Since 2014, however, Scrypt ASIC miners have existed, and graphics cards and CPUs no longer stand a chance on Litecoin today. Hashrate is given in GH/s (billions of hashes per second), efficiency in J/MH.

Litecoin halving: 2023 and the next one in 2027

A halving is the moment when the block reward is cut in half. For Litecoin it comes every 840,000 blocks. We have described the halving in general in the article Halving: what to prepare for.

What matters for miners is that the Litecoin halving does not affect Dogecoin. Today Litecoin provides about CZK 1.86 of the total CZK 12.46 per 1 GH/s a day (as of 18 October 2026). If exchange rates and difficulty did not change, a Scrypt miner's earnings after the halving would fall to roughly CZK 11.5 per GH/s. In reality, difficulty and exchange rates usually move after a halving, so this is only an indicative calculation.

Merged mining with Dogecoin

Since September 2014 the Dogecoin network has accepted work done for Litecoin. The miner connects to a pool that supports merged mining, and every hash found counts for both networks. The hashrate is not split – the rewards add up. We explain this in detail in the article Dogecoin (DOGE): what it is and how it is mined.

In practice this means that when choosing a pool you look not only at the fee, but also at how the pool pays out DOGE: separately to a Dogecoin address, or converted into LTC.

How much a Litecoin miner earns today

The table shows the gross earnings from LTC and DOGE combined and the electricity consumption at today's difficulty and exchange rate. The last column assumes the cheapest location of our hosting at 1,13 Kč/kWh.

Calculation as of 18 October 2026, without the pool fee. In hosting, all machines except the L7 come out with a reasonable margin. The older L7 at 0.36 J/MH is sensitive to every drop in the exchange rate, and after the 2027 halving its margin will narrow further. Current figures for a specific machine can be found on its product page.

Home miners: DG Home 1, Fluminer L2 and VolcMiner D1 Mini

The three smallest machines in the table are built for a flat or office: they plug into a standard socket (100–240 V) and are quiet.

At a household electricity price of around CZK 5/kWh, none of them currently earns enough to cover its power. They make sense where you have cheap or your own electricity (surplus from solar panels), or when you use the miner's heat to heat a room. We write more about this in the article quiet miner for DOGE and LTC.

Pools and wallets

For Litecoin, choose a pool that supports merged mining with Dogecoin – otherwise you lose most of the earnings. Such payouts are offered, for example, by ViaBTC (LTC and DOGE separately) or litecoinpool.org (everything converted into LTC).

For payouts, the official Litecoin Core wallet or a hardware wallet with Litecoin support is enough. Enter a standard address in the pool (starting with ltc1, L or M). If your wallet also offers an MWEB address, check with the pool whether it sends payouts to it.

Risks of mining Litecoin

• 2027 halving: the LTC part of earnings will be cut in half. For machines with worse efficiency, this can decide profitability.
• Dependence on Dogecoin: most of the earnings today come from DOGE. A fall in its price shows up in income more than a fall in LTC.
• Noise and heat: powerful machines run at around 75 dB and put out 3–6 kW of heat. Without hosting or soundproofing, they cannot be run at home.
• Exchange rate and difficulty: the calculations in the article apply to 18 October 2026 and change every hour.

What next

• Litecoin and Dogecoin miners – all Scrypt machines with an earnings calculator.
• Dogecoin (DOGE) – the second coin a Scrypt miner mines simultaneously, which today provides most of the earnings.
• ASIC miner hosting – running noisy machines at an industrial electricity price.

Sources

• Miningboard: Litecoin halvings and an estimate of the next one
• litecoinpool.org: launch of merged mining with Dogecoin
• Litecoin.org – official website and Litecoin Core wallet