Litecoin (LTC) creator Charlie Lee highlighted the advantages of Bitcoin BTC/USD on Twitter in relation to the problem posed by fake bullion bars.
What Happened: Lee reacted to a post by a Twitter user who shared a photo of a “gold” bar filled with tungsten, saying this was one of the reasons why “no one accepts gold as payment.” The user suggested that such fake gold bars go undetected as tungsten has the same density as the precious yellow metal.
The Litecoin founder said, “The reason why #Bitcoin fixes this is because everyone can easily and cheaply run their own node.”
“With your own node, it will verify whether or not you actually received BTC. Without it, you will need to rely on a third party. That’s why decentralization is of utmost importance.”
See Also: How To Earn Interest On Bitcoin
Why It Matters: Australia’s historic Perth Mint faced a $9 billion recall this month after selling diluted gold bars to China, ABC News reported earlier.
In the three years leading up to 2019, at least $50 million worth of fake gold bars stamped with Swiss refinery marks, but not produced by those facilities, were found in the vaults of JPMorgan Chase, reported Reuters.
The Western Australia-government-owned Mint is the largest processor of newly mined gold in the world.
Lee, a former engineer at Google, has previously sounded the alarm about initial coin offerings and nonfungible tokens.
Litecoin was created by forking Bitcoin in 2011 and is mined using ASIC miners. It is often considered a lite version of the apex cryptocurrency or akin to being digital silver whereas Bitcoin is often pitched as digital gold.
Price Action: Over a seven-day period, Litecoin has soared 18.1%. While at the time of writing LTC was up 8.9% at $95.60. Bitcoin was seen trading 3.1% higher at $28,196.88. For the week, the apex coin has shot up 9.9%.
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