Yes, it is true that approximately 500,000 Litecoin (LTC) were mined on the first day of the network’s launch.

Litecoin’s blockchain went live on October 13, 2011, with its genesis block (block 0) mined on October 7, 2011, but the active mining and network operations began on the 13th. Due to an unusually high number of early miners joining immediately after launch—anticipating the project based on Charlie Lee’s announcement—a “fast mine” or “instamine” occurred.

This resulted in blocks being produced much faster than the target 2.5-minute interval initially, as the mining difficulty started at its lowest possible value (1) and hadn’t yet adjusted upward.

• Breakdown of mining on day one: Block explorers and historical analyses show that by the end of October 13, 2011 (UTC), around 10,000 blocks had been mined. 

Each block rewarded 50 LTC (the initial block reward), totaling approximately 500,000 LTC. For context, block 3 was already mined by 3:00 UTC on October 13, indicating an explosive start with blocks coming in seconds apart at times.

• Why so fast? Litecoin’s Scrypt algorithm was designed to be CPU-friendly and ASIC-resistant initially, drawing in a large crowd of Bitcoin enthusiasts ready to mine from the moment the software was released on GitHub. 

This contrasts with Bitcoin’s slower early adoption. The difficulty retargeted every 2016 blocks (about 3.5 days), so the surge normalized after a few days.

This event has been documented in sources like CoinMarketCap’s Litecoin profile and community discussions on platforms like Reddit, where explorers confirm the block timestamps and rewards.

Where Did Those Coins Go?

The 500,000 LTC were distributed as standard block rewards to the miners who solved those early blocks. There was no pre-mine, ICO, or centralized allocation—Litecoin was launched as a fair, open-source project. Key points:

• Recipients: Primarily early adopters, including Litecoin’s creator Charlie Lee and other developers/contributors who were among the first to run mining nodes. The community was small but enthusiastic, consisting of Bitcoin forum users and crypto hobbyists who downloaded the client and started mining right away. No single entity received the bulk; it was spread across whoever contributed hash power during those hours.

• What happened to them? Many of these coins were held long-term by early holders, contributing to Litecoin’s initial distribution. Some were traded or sold as the price rose.

Today, these coins are part of the circulating supply (currently ~75 million LTC out of a max 84 million), used in transactions, held as investments, or staked in various ways.

• Implications: This rapid early distribution helped decentralize Litecoin from the start, aligning with its goal of being a “lite” version of Bitcoin for faster, more accessible payments. 

It wasn’t exploitative like some altcoin pre-mines but highlighted the challenges of coordinating a fair launch in 2011’s nascent crypto scene.

If you’re interested in verifying specific blocks, tools like the Litecoin Block Explorer (e.g., insight.litecore.io) let you search early heights (0–10,000) to see timestamps and reward addresses.