The crypto scene has been through a lot this year and the bears have been especially hard on the crypto market with cryptocurrencies taking a beating. Though Litecoin was not spared from the bloodbath with an exponential decay in the last few days.

Analysts have pointed out that the coin still has a shot at rising though it is still swinging between gains and losses at the moment. Much of the coin’s resilience and progress since integration is due to various factors as well as the nature of the coin and its network.

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, earlier spoke of the susceptibility of cryptocurrencies to miners 51% attacks on the proof-of-work chain. The Litecoin creator explained the methods used in securing the coin’s network in its early days of integration on twitter.

He pointed out that he had implemented checkpoints which had such an influence on the networks that 51% attacks from miners was averted up to date. He explained that the early days of integration of the proof of work chain were with lesser hash rates which made the pathway to attacks on the Litecoin Network wider.

He said in the tweet:

“In the early days of Litecoin (2011), there were threats of 51% attacks. To keep Litecoin secure, I utilized checkpoints. Checkpointing is a centralising feature as it relies on the developer deciding which is the right chain. But for the beginning of the coin, it made sense.”

He further mentioned that he considered preventing reorgs in the code but later decided against it for reasons best known to him. In a way, his methods mirrored move by Bitcoin Cash (BCH) developers in ensuring their recent ABC implementation was tamper-proof.

Not a Casualty in the Hash Wars

Recent report pointed out that a major proponent of the Bitcoin SV chain had threatened to render the ABC network obsolete. The ABC chain is, however, yet to be attacked because the hash power to be used in relatively stronger in the ABC chain.

In bid to protect the BCH network from 51% attacks, the development team had integrated checkpointing into their mode of operations. However, the downside to this protection mechanism remained that the network might be more centralised than allowed in the crypto sphere.

It is important to note that 51% attacks are attacks on a blockchain that gives more 50% controlling powers to a group of miners to manipulate transactions as they deem fit. Since Litecoin was created as an alternative mode of payment, 51% attacks will not only weaken the network but render it obsolete in near future.