Litecoin was launched in 2011 and was based on the cloned source code for Bitcoin. This means that Litecoin is very heavily influenced by the market-leading cryptocurrency. The aforementioned Charlie Lee was intimately involved with this initial cloning, and a new blockchain was created via his innovation. Advocates of Litecoin often assert that its blockchain is more efficient and operates in a superior fashion to the Bitcoin blockchain. Litecoin was one of the forerunners of the cryptocurrency space and was extremely prominent in the early days of the medium, and although other contenders such as Ripple and Ethereum have overtaken it, the token retains considerable popularity.