Bitcoin has segwit too. Litecoin's blockchain is smaller because it has fewer transactions on it. One of Litecoin's claims to fame is that it has a smaller blo

Bitcoin has segwit too. Litecoin's blockchain is smaller because it has fewer transactions on it. One of Litecoin's claims to fame is that it has a smaller block confirmation time. It's not some technological break-through but just the tweaking of a constant with trade-offs. Adjusting the block time down means network latency and bandwidth are a bigger deal to miners and can increase the block orphan rate, possibly resulting in a small push toward miner centralization compared to a higher block time. Though as the Lightning Network comes to Bitcoin (and Litecoin), users will be able to make transactions without waiting for block confirmations (while still getting the same guarantees against counterparty risk and doublespends), decreasing the benefit of shorter block times.