Litecoin vs Dogecoin: what is the difference?

Litecoin vs Dogecoin is a comparison of two of the oldest cryptocurrencies, which are closely related under the hood. Dogecoin was built from Litecoin's code, and both use the same mining algorithm. The biggest differences are supply, block speed and how each project presents itself.

LTC vs DOGE: how do they compare?

	Litecoin (LTC)	Dogecoin (DOGE)
Launched	October 2011	December 6, 2013
Origin	Fork of Bitcoin's code	Built on Litecoin's code
Block time	About 2.5 minutes	About 1 minute
Supply	Capped at 84 million	No cap
New coins	6.25 LTC per block, halving about every four years	10,000 DOGE per block, fixed
Mining	Scrypt proof of work	Scrypt proof of work

Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee as a faster, lighter version of Bitcoin. Dogecoin began as a joke and became the first meme coin. Both have their own blockchains, so neither is a token on another network.

Dogecoin vs Litecoin supply: what is the difference?

Litecoin follows Bitcoin's model. A filing for the Canary Litecoin ETF says about 76.9 million of the 84 million LTC were outstanding as of February 2026, and that the block reward is expected to halve from 6.25 to 3.125 LTC around July 2027.

Dogecoin has no cap and no halvings. Each block creates 10,000 DOGE, which adds roughly 5 billion coins a year. Trezor notes this means a yearly inflation rate that shrinks slowly as a share of the total.

How does Litecoin and Dogecoin merged mining work?

Merged mining lets a miner work on two blockchains that use the same algorithm at once, without doing extra work. In 2014, Dogecoin's mining power was falling, which raised the risk of a 51% attack. Its community chose, on Charlie Lee's advice, to allow merged mining with Litecoin through a hard fork that year.

Since then, Litecoin miners can earn DOGE alongside LTC. Litecoin.com says Dogecoin's mining power rose sharply as a result, and describes the arrangement as mutual protection. Some Dogecoin users worried at the time about depending on another project.

Litecoin vs Dogecoin fees: which is cheaper?

Both are known for low fees compared with Bitcoin, but exact costs change with demand and the wallet used. Dogecoin Core 1.14.5, released in November 2021, set a recommended fee of 0.01 DOGE per kilobyte of transaction data. Trezor describes Litecoin's fees as relatively low. Exchanges also set their own withdrawal fees, as covered in what are crypto fees.

Both now have US exchange-traded funds as of October 2026. The first spot dogecoin ETF began trading on September 18, 2025, and the Canary Litecoin ETF started operating in October 2025. Litecoin also offers an optional privacy feature called MWEB, added in May 2022. Both remain volatile and can lose much of their value.