Litecoin, launched in 2011, was among the initial cryptocurrencies following bitcoin and has often been referred to as silver to bitcoins gold. It was created by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate and former Google engineer. Litecoin is based on an open source global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority and uses "scrypt" as a proof of work, which can be decoded with the help of CPUs of consumer grade. Although Litecoin is like bitcoin in many ways, it has a faster block generation rate and hence offers a faster transaction confirmation. Other than developers, there are a growing number of merchants who accept Litecoin. As of July 19, 2018, Litecoin had a market cap of $5.03 billion and a per token value of $87.56.