The leader of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, is a public and open person, but with a more detailed study of his biography, you understand that not everything is so simple.
Charlie Lee was born in West Africa in Ivory Coast, where his parents moved in the 60s. He has a brother, Bobby Lee, who runs the Chinese company BTCC mining).
In 13 years, Charlie and his parents moved to the USA in New Jersey, where he graduated from Lawrenceville High School in 1995 year. He then entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where in 2000 he received a master's degree in computer science.
After graduation, Charlie worked as a programmer in various companies, including Microsoft, Guidewire and Google, and in 2011 he learned about cryptocurrency.
From bitcoin to lightcoin
Charlie Lee began his acquaintance with Bitcoin with an article in a printed publication, where he talked about crypt trading on the darknet. When he worked at Google, he contacted Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn and bought his first BTC from him at a price of 30 $.
Despite working as a programmer, Charlie was fond of economics and tried his hand at trading gold. Realizing that cryptocurrencies are a symbiosis of programming and finance, he first purchased equipment for bitcoin mining, and then proceeded to develop his own altcoin.
In September, 2011 was launched Fairbix cryptocurrency, in the creation of which Charlie Lee participated. The project failed due to the 7 million coin premina and critical code error.
But just a month later, in October 2011, Charlie Lee presents Litecoin to the world. He positions it as a convenient means for making small payments, and states that lightcoin will never fight for primacy with Bitcoin.
In 2013, Charlie Lee leaves Google and gets a job at a crypto exchange Coinbase software engineer, where he was quickly promoted to CTO. And in June 2017, he will leave this position, stating that he wants to spend 100% of his time on Litecoin.
Charlie Lee is Satoshi Nakamoto?
In the summer of 2017, users Jaw709 and MonocoleDundee claimed that Charlie Lee was the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
In defense of this version is a series of evidence, the main ones are:
- After launching the lightcoin network, Charlie Lee changed his Twitter alias to @SatoshiLite.
- For Satoshi, bitcoin was just a hobby and not the most successful project. Therefore, when he changed his mind and decided to devote himself to cryptocurrencies, he created an improved version - Litecoin.
- Charlie Lee spent 2-3 months developing Litecoin, and during this time he managed to figure out the bitcoin code and modernize it. At that time, no one even thought about the scalability problem, and in Litecoin this moment was fixed in advance. It is impossible to do something like this in such a short time from scratch.
- Lightcoin develops steadily without loud scandals and mistakes, therefore, his leader has an experience about which he does not apply.
- At Coinbase, Charlie Lee quickly occupies a leading technical position. Exposeers suggest that Charlie told the management of the exchange that he is Satoshi, due to which he moved up the career ladder.
- Charlie Lee actively defends Bitcoin and constantly states that Lightcoin is not his competitor. Perhaps, so he secretly take care of his first child.
This evidence was extremely convincing, and immediately after they were published, Charlie tweeted: “I was calculated.” This post was a joke, but many took it seriously. So a couple of days later, Charlie Lee wrote that he was definitely not Satoshi Nakamoto. But even after the second statement, there were those who did not believe him.
Is Charlie Lee so simple?
Not everyone sees Charlie Lee as a disinterested cryptohero, and for good reason.
After the launch of Litecoin, the new cryptocurrency was not very popular. The price of LTC rose to $4 and went up only after the listing on Coinbase. Growth in value is normal for cryptocurrencies after being listed on a major crypto exchange. But just at that time, Charlie Lee was the CTO of Coinbase and could actively contribute to the listing.
He is accused of not only helping lightcoin to get into Coinbase, but also earned good money from it. Firstly, LTC began to grow actively a month before entering the stock exchange. Secondly, Charlie Lee quit voluntarily a month after listing, although he had worked for the company for more than 3 years before. Thirdly, he actively announced this event, but he constantly refused to talk about deadlines. Although the technical director must be aware of such details.
In the future, Charlie Lee was accused of manipulating the LTC course through social networks. He posts constantly, and only Twitter has over 700 thousand readers, I do not want to manipulate. In response, Charlie said that he had sold and distributed all his Lightcoins in order to be able to express his thoughts and this did not lead to a conflict of interests in the future.
A noble deed, but Charlie did not promise that he would not buy or not buy new lightcoins for himself. In addition, he often praises Bitcoin, Monero and Decred. A tweet recently came out in which the leader of the Litecoin praised the Nano cryptocurrency and the course immediately went up. A logical question arises, what did Charlie Lee buy instead of lightcoins?
So who is Charlie Lee really? Apparently, he is the one who wants and knows how to make Litecoin a cryptocurrency in demand for everyday payments. On the 2018 year, he set a goal to overtake Bitcoin Cash in acceptance and capitalization.
Charlie Lee VS Roger Ver! Place your bets, gentlemen!