Litecoin has seen explosive growth over the last three days, with the price rising from $30 USD to an all-time high of $53.
Many cryptocurrencies have experienced massive gains already this year although Litecoin has not seen the same type of price action.
So what is fueling this latest price rally in Litecoin?
I can point to four major developments contributing to the upward price momentum.
Charlie Lee leaves Coinbase to focus on Litecoin
Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on October 7, 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. Charlie Lee, also known as coblee or SatoshiLite is the managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, however Lee had also been working as the Director of Engineering at Coinbase, a popular digital asset exchange. Lee announced on June 9 that he would be leaving Coinbase in order to focus on the development of Litecoin. Lee is leaving Coinbase during a time of rapid growth as the company is reportedly adding thousands of new users weekly. This is a good sign for the Litecoin community as Lee clearly sees a bright future for the popular cryptocurrency with this move solidifying his commitment to the project.
Litecoin is being added to new exchanges.
When a cryptocurrency is added to a new exchange it often precipitates a bump up in price as new markets are opened up to the coin. This past week there were two major announcements about LTC being integrated into popular exchanges.
Demand in Asia
Japanese and South Korean investors were credited with being a major factor in the dramatic price rise in Ripple earlier this year. Now it appears that these same investors are warming up to Litecoin as volume is beginning to pick up on Asian exchanges. The Asian markets are proving themselves to be increasingly important in the FinTech sector. Keep an eye on how Litecoin is viewed in these markets, it could have a big impact on the future of LTC.
Boarding the hype train!
As I mentioned previously the entire cryptocurrency sector has seen amazing growth as new investors flood into the space and excitement abounds. Speculators are searching for the next big thing and many of the alts have benefited, although Litecoin has been noticeably absent from the crypto hysteria. Expect to see price volatility as speculators try and capitalize on Litecoins most recent gains. It appears it is Litecoin's turn for a price surge.
Although some of these gains are being fueled by hype and speculation, remember that after successfully implementing SegWit and currently working to integrate Lightning Network, LTC's fundamentals remain strong.
If you want to learn more about Litecoin, read my article Litecoin: What You Need To Know (This is not financial advice)
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DASH: XgQ9NBonMoCPKhF37agY4W8zk7gwQFnwGV
Litecoin: LfqygtBxy3AJgEpTnTMUYGEoTYEcED8YPZ
Resteemed ;)
Thanks! :)
I'm getting that feeling again @digicrypt. Same one I had when I got into dash around $12 and unloaded at $110. I see $100 + in LTCs future. If Charlie Lee can't get it there then I really don't think anyone can. Great Post as Always, but You know that Already...:)
I hope you are right! I have a lot of respect for Charlie Lee, he has been extremely committed to the betterment of LTC, I agree, if he can't do it noone can!
Thanks!
Litecoin has been very much under the radar for the last few years. This is unwarranted given the large role of LTC as carrier coin and base coin in a lot of keypairs on exchanges. Given the uncertainties surrounding Bitcoin at the moment, this will be another moment for Litecoin to shine.
In its wake, other sleeping giants could follow (e.g., Peercoin).
watch the market cap for litecoin, still very small compared with bitcoin and ethereum but the 24 hour volume is sometimes higher. Certainly looks valuable relative to the big two.
The volume has seen a massive increase in the last few days. One of the things I tell people, is to not only look at market cap but regularly check volume, it is an important part of the overall picture!
Great source of info, bro
Thanks!
Resteemed
Thanks!
Another main reason is because bitcoin scaling issue, the longer scaling issue with bitcoin lasts the more beneficial it seems to be getting for Litecoin.
I have covered that a lot in my other writings about LTC. I agree that has been an influence on the price rise up to this point and will continue to be in the future, but I believe this most recent price surge, specifically over the last 3 days, has more to do with these four factors.
Hi @digicrypt, good post! I'm a new Steemian and recently joined the platform. It would be great if you could check out my blog and follow me if you like my content. Thanks!
So... hype and momo. If Bitcoin gets SegWit and other options to make it transact faster, I don't understand why Litecoin has any value at all.
This is one of the reasons I have cautioned ppl when writing about LTC, as a long term investment could be risky, a lot of it's current price action relies on BTC's failures. That being said, I would argue that if BTC implements SegWit the we get both LTC and BTC running lightning with Atomic swaps between the two, that could be awesome! I think there is definitely value in having a secondary currency that has a strong network and community behind it.
But that's the thing: there are lots of contenders for that secondary currency these days. I appreciate your thoughts!
I am not disagreeing with you, as I said LTC is still a bit of a risk play for the very same reasons you mention. There are literally hundreds of competitors...but if lightning went live on both BTC and LTC you could potentially have atomic swaps, were you could change between the two without using a third party. LTC also has a strong community behind it, which is very important. But yeah who knows maybe there will be a coin that hasn't even been created yet that lands itself the #2 spot.
No problem! Thanks for the questions, debate and discussion is awesome, makes everyone smarter and the tech stronger! Have a great day!
Agreed, it's useful and I very much appreciated your post!
I think Litecoin will need to figure out the next innovation if BTC activates SegWit and Lightning Network successfully.
Now, one interesting thing that could happen is where Bitcoin is faster but still not as a fast as Litecoin, and as you mention converting between Litecoin and Bitcoin becomes transparent and would not need an exchange... that could change the game.
Agreed! :)
Interesting blog. Good to see I'm not the only one who thinks like this. Many people say the prices of cryptos are high but we also thought that about Amazon, Apple and Facebok last year. Besides coinmarketcap.com there is: https://www.coincheckup.com I'm really happy with this site that gives complete coin analysis for every single crypto. See: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Litecoin#analysis To see the: Litecoin Detailed report.
Benefits for miners are likely a large part of the outlook for a cryptocurrency's future (if mining is used).
While Litecoin uses SHA256 for its hashing algorithm (like bitcoin), its implementation renders parallelizing calculations impossible. Parallelizing a calculation requires more memory, resulting in a tougher competition for miner acceptance. Another notable difference is that LTC's protocols have a fast faster block creation time, enabling miners to have a better opportunity to solve more blocks.
All in all, I believe LTC presents a better environment (currently) for miners than BTC.
Yes i like that about LTC too, SHA256 is the future of crypto! Nice post!
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