According to coin market cap litecoin has increased approximately 2000% (YTD).
What is litecoin and why is it rising in price?
Litecoin, like BTC, is a peer-to-peer Internet currency allowing “instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world.”In addition, it is also decentralized without any central authorities. In comparison to BTC, Litecoin is able to process a block every 2.5 minutes while BTC does it in 10 minutes. According to developers, this feature makes Litecoin superior to the BTC. It offers faster transaction confirmation. Additionally, Litecoin is said to offer improved storage efficiency. The following text was obtained from an academic paper:
“Litecoin uses in its proof-of-work algorithm, a sequential memory-hard function requiring asymptotically more memory than an algorithm which is not memory-hard.” Source
Litecoin's rally is best seen not as an isolated event, but part of an increased institutional interest in the crypto currency, triggered by a major rally in bitcoin this year. As it remains best known as the "silver to bitcoin’s gold," the focus of the team behind litecoin has been to promote it as a payment method, especially as bitcoin continues to underperform in this area.As LTC creator Charlie Lee said recently, "Litecoin will provide a niche where it will be more used for payment, whereas bitcoin will be more used for storing."Yet, while it has a smaller network, with fewer merchants and miners, it's also showing signs its technology is advancing more quickly. Litecoin was the first major currency to activate a code upgrade called SegWit on may 10, moreover, SegWit activation opened doors for the Lightning Network on litecoin, which would allow for faster and cheaper transactions.On September 1, Litecoin Foundation tweeted that the first Lightning Network-based litecoin transaction was successful.
My opinion: to buy or not to buy?
Litecoin, typically mirrors the price action of Bitcoin except with a few alterations. The recent appreciation of bitcoin cash has resulted in a slight dip in the litecoin price. However, with the bitcoin cash price slipping, I believe that is time for litecoin to experience significant gains. In my opinion, litecoin should and eventually will be approximately on quarter of the price of bitcoin and it will therefore easily surpass the $1000 mark in the near to mid term future (between now to the end of 2018). Of course this is a speculative market and if you choose to invest then you are responsible for the risks involved.
i am a big fan of Litecoin, ive been hodling since it was around $2 maybe less...the fast transactions and low fees will make a huge impact, and with Lee back in the mix and making things happen, im thinking alot of growth is going to come in 2018...
Oh wow! I agree, I believe there will be huge returns in the future. It can work with bitcoin and is not in direct competition which I like.
So you did good investing. I never seem to hear about anything to invest in until it's already going through the roof.
@johnwjr7 I'll give you a tip - funcoin and powerledger I mean know one can be 100% sure but I would put some money into these now! ;)
If i'm wrong then you can come back in a year or two and yell at me ahaha
Bitcoin, Litecoin and all those other cryptocurrencies, I just don't understand. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough to understand them, but it all seems confusing.
Do you mean the underlying blockchain? Or their purpose in society?
Block chain is just a detailed record of transaction through a decentralised network.
Basically bitcoin is like a digital gold, there is a finite number of bitcoin created which can be unlocked by a process known as mining. That is bitcoin is designed to be a store of value or a commodity if you like. For this reason though, the fees on bitcoin are relatively high (for a crypto currency) and the transactions are very slow.
Litecoin is designed to be transferred with much lower fees and higher speeds. That is litecoin can provide bitcoin with the ability to be spent.
Does it make a little more sense or are you still confused?
The founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, is a wonderful person. I highly suggest you follow him on Twitter. He's a top-notch guy!
100% agree!
Great work!