Litecoin was created on October 7, 2011 by Charlie Lee, formerly an Engineering Director and Google employee. It was an early spinoff of Bitcoin. It is nearly technically identical to Bitcoin. However, in order to confirm transactions at a faster speed, its network allows for a block to be processed every 2.5 minutes instead of 10 minutes, as it is with Bitcoin. In its proof-of-work algorithm, Litecoin uses scrypt, which makes the devices made for mining Ltecoin more expensive than those for Bitcoin. Litecoin became the first of the top 5 largest cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness in May 2017. Later during the same month, the first Lightning Network transaction was completed.