Charlie Lee on the Dark Side of Litecoin’s Exchange Relationships – Part 2

Litecoin creator Charlie Lee continues to review events for the past 10 years after remembering the trade show launch event in Part 1, as reported by Bitcoin Magazine. Since only very few projects have succeeded in this, this can be rated as a quite remarkable achievement. In Part 2 we will cover the relationship of the project to the exchange. Charlie Lee has covered the dark corners of this story and unfortunately it ends in betrayal.

Part 2 describes Charlie Lee’s relationships, connections, and his long journey to credibility, resistance, and will.

Before we dive into the story, however, there is one small detail that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Charlie Lee praises the creator of the Litecoin logo

There’s not much to say about the logos, but it’s interesting that Lee gave its creators the praise they deserve. The first and second logos show the development:

The source: Charlie Lee

“The second logo was designed by Mick Bruce. I still like it very much. It looks good next to the Bitcoin logo. ”

And the last one is simplified from the second logo. The current logo was designed by Robbie Coleman and his team.

The source: Charlie Lee

Long street full of thorns from Litecoin to listed on the stock exchange

In 2011 Litecoin was immediately listed on the now defunct BTC-e. BTC-e was a fairly successful exchange, but fell out of favor when the US Department of Justice accused it of washing money off the mountain. Gox. Regarding Litecoin, Charlie Lee said the listing event “helped a lot in getting the miners to access liquidity fairly quickly. Litecoin is quickly becoming one of the most popular coins on BTC-e. ”

This may sound like a contradiction in terms of the title, but the troubles Litecoin faced actually emerged in the aftermath.

The source: Charlie Lee

“From 2011 to 2013, I spent a lot of time supporting the early development of Litecoin and driving adoption wherever I could. I’ve spoken a lot with all of the exchanges in support of LTC. I realize that liquidity is extremely important for a coin. Nothing works without liquidity. ”

However, despite Lee’s efforts, it took 2 years for the second exchange to list Litecoin. Bitfinex took the opportunity of this young project.

“A very important event for Litecoin. This is the first major exchange to support LTC. ”

After that, Charlie Lee continued trying to convince Bitstamp’s CEO to list LTC but was ignored until it succeeded in 2017. The same thing happened with BitPay, and the platform only supported LTC that year.

“At the 2013 Bitcoin Conference, I remember a talk by Bitstamp co-founder and CEO Nejc Kodrič. In the Q&A below, I asked him if Bitstamp added LTC. I think he just giggled and went on to the next question. ”

However, Chinese exchanges listed LTC from the start.

“Between late 2012 and early 2013, two of the largest Chinese exchanges, Okcoin and Huobi, supported LTC. This is very important”.

The question arises, did Charlie Lee ever look down on these two exchanges? “The volume is pretty insane too, but it’s not clear how much of it is fake.”

Charlie Lee and Coinbase love story

In 2013, Charlie Lee stepped down as the lead developer of Litecoin and turned it over to Warren Togami.

“In 2013 I thought it was time to leave Litecoin. I was very fortunate to find Warren Togami, the founder of the Fedora Project, as the lead developer for Litecoin. Warren is amazing and we were delighted to see him lead the way. ”

At the same time, he quit his high paying job at Google because they weren’t interested in cryptocurrencies. That’s when Lee Coinbase came to mind. He contacted them to see if they were interested in listing Litecoin and they hired him instead.

“I interviewed Coinbase and it seemed like a crazy decision. I would have to go to work in San Francisco, drive two hours to and from home, pay 50% less, work twice as hard, and miss out on all the benefits of Google. But it was a rash decision for me. Coinbase is the hot startup and cryptocurrency company making Bitcoin easy to use. I know Litecoin is going nowhere if Bitcoin isn’t working. ”

It is a cruel truth that all altcoins have to live with to this day. Plus, Lee’s ultimate goal is to convince Coinbase to endorse Litecoin. So is there any reason not to accept this invitation?

The relationship with China has also paid off, and the BTC China Exchange, co-founded by Charlie Lee’s brother, has listed the coin.

“Even if it’s sensational news, why did it take so long ?!” Lee asked cheerfully. It should also be noted that the banner he mentioned shows Charlie and Bobby as brothers.

The source: Charlie Lee

“But at least Bobby Lee made a great banner for it. Then there were rumors that Mt. Gox was adding a second coin, LTC, to the platform. At that point, MtGox accounted for 97% of the total Bitcoin trading volume. Your decision to support LTC is critical to Litecoin’s liquidity. ”

Charlie Lee confirm 2015:

“The rumors are true. I spoke to CEO Mark Karpelès almost every day in mid-2015, but Mt. Gox happened before they implemented those plans. The situation suddenly became chaotic, out of control. If you think back, it turns out that “in unhappiness there is happiness”.

Then, when everything worked out, Charlie Lee and Coinbase’s romance turned sour.

The Brian Armstrong tweet he mentioned notes:

“Ripple, Stellar, and Altcoins are all distractions. Bitcoin still has a long way to go. We should focus on BTC and sidechains. ”

The source: Charlie Lee

On the other hand, In 2016, Litecoin trading volumes on the Chinese exchanges exploded and Charlie Lee saw his chance.

“Things changed in 2016. That was when LTC trading volume exploded on Chinese exchanges and I realized that Coinbase was not taking advantage of the benefits available, resulting in lost interests and opportunities, with the decision not to endorse Altcoins. Adding altcoins through Coinbase would make economic sense.

This is also where Ethereum began to grow. So I suggested Brian and Fred Ehrsam add both LTC and ETH to Coinbase. ”

The thesis of the proposal is that the people of the United States have no easy way to buy, store and trade these coins, so there is “a lot of unmet need”. Accordingly, Coinbase can earn a lot of money. ”

This is where the betrayal is exposed. Two Coinbase managers broke Charlie Lee’s heart by accepting the proposal, but only for ETH.

“There are so many unmet needs. There is no easy way for the people of the United States to store and trade these coins. And Coinbase will meet most of the demand if it adds them in. Both Brian and Fred liked the above idea, but they struck out LTC. You only want to do that with ETH.

Although I went according to plan, everything went against my will. Litecoin had a much higher global trading volume at the time and was the second largest coin by market capitalization. So it’s fair to say that ETH has more potential, but we missed introducing LTC at the same time. ”

Some time later, Lee decided to take a three-month break from Coinbase in 2016 to focus on his project.

In Season 3, the story of Litecoin will intertwine with the story of Bitcoin and the controversial Segwit implementation. Charlie Lee and his team are the creators of Segwit. But how? Look forward to the next part!

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Minh Anh

According to Newsbtc

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