Bitcoin Forum

What is the best (cheapest and fastest) way to buy Litecoin with Bitcoin?

Shapeshift.io?

I would suggest: https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/LTC_BTC

Looks like I would need a Litecoin account?

So like coinbase to Shapeshift to ?

Open an account at the link I provided and send your BTC there to make a trade.

Virtually any altcoin exchange would do since almost all of them support LTC. There are many exchanges out there including Cryptsy (which has already been mentioned) and Poloniex (which is currently my personal favorite). I've heard of Shapeshift.io and they seem to have good reviews although I've never used them myself. I understand that they work a bit differently compared to traditional exchanges.


Not sure what you mean by this but in order to actually own litecoins, you will need a Litecoin wallet. Just like the way you need a Bitcoin wallet if you want to own bitcoins. I wouldn't advise storing your funds in an online wallet that you don't have the private keys to and the only online wallet I'm aware of which grants you control over your private keys is Blockchain.info but they don't support Litecoin.

I would advise downloading the official Litecoin client here (http://www.litecoin.org/) or alternatively, using a thin client such as Electrum-LTC if you don't want to download the blockchain which can be found here (http://www.electrum-ltc.org/).

If you want to buy large amounts you will need to spread across exchanges or wait for your orders to fill.

Almost all the exchanges have Litecoin as a BTC trading partner.  Just personal preference which exchange you want to use.