Litecoin founder Charlie Lee once said: "If I could do it all over again, I would only buy Bitcoin and avoid other coins." This statement has caused quite a ripple in the altcoin community. It sounds harsh but also hits the truth of the crypto world—between faith and speculation, many projects have long fallen behind.

Remember those years when Litecoin was dubbed "digital silver," serving as Bitcoin's testing ground, a payment innovator, and even ranking in the top five by market cap. Ten years have passed, and it neither became the mainstream payment choice nor built a truly competitive ecosystem. As for Bitcoin? Having gone through countless bull and bear cycles, it has become increasingly stable—it's not chasing transaction speed, nor boasting smart contract features, it just does one thing: being the most widely recognized store of value globally.

Charlie’s "regret" ultimately isn’t about technology but a wake-up call to the industry’s restless nature. Too many projects claim innovation on the surface but are fundamentally just old tricks of copying and marketing. True value? It’s never in the promises of whitepapers but in what is validated and accumulated over time. By 2025, although Litecoin has launched LitVM, sought institutional support, and even introduced spot ETFs, these are more about "chasing" rather than "leading."

But there’s no need to be overly pessimistic. It’s precisely because pioneers like Litecoin have tried and erred that the entire community has realized a key principle— the true moat of decentralization isn’t how cool the code is, but how deep the consensus runs. Litecoin may never surpass Bitcoin, but the light it once ignited still guides the exploration of Web3. Instead of completely dismissing "silver," it’s better to always respect "gold."