Bitcoin
Here’s How And Why Litecoin Could Become The Next Bitcoin
Bitcoin has been grabbing all the headlines over the last week or so on the back of its reaching all time highs just shy of $20,000 a piece before correcting to current levels in and around the $16,000 mark at the end of last week.
Another coin, however, has increased in value by a substantially higher multiple this year than has bitcoin – Litecoin. This week, Litecoin reached $150 a coin for the first time ever. On some of the more liquid exchanges, it’s going for as high as $190 a piece. At the start fo this year, LTC went for around $5.
Why is this a big deal?
Many reading will likely have seen other so-called altcoins and ICO tokens run further this year and – as such – might be inclined to ask why a 3,000% or so run in Litecoin is that big a deal. The answer is rooted in prominence. Litecoin may long have been deemed the silver to bitcoin’s gold and – sure – over the past few years, it hasn’t gained anything like the traction that bitcoin has gained from a mainstream awareness and adoption perspective.
Litecoin Daily Chart
As we said last week, however, this is more to do with the driving forces behind the coin than it is to do with anything else and, with this disparity in scale of push between bitcoin and Litecoin closing of late, things are rebalancing.
Charlie Lee, the guy who created LItecoin, is now behind the drive for mainstream adoption full time. Previously, he was tied up as an engineer at Coinbase. While he was at Coinbase, a billion-dollar industry sprung up to drive the price of bitcoin upwards and, as the numbers above show, has been incredibly successful at doing just that.
We think Litecoin is next in line for this push.
The thing is, Litecoin is superior to bitcoin in many ways. It’s lighter (from an efficiency perspective), it’s quicker (from a transaction verification time perspective) and it’s far more durable in the sense that it can handle a maximum capacity of 56 transactions per second (while bitcoin can only handle seven and Ethereum can handle just 15).
As bitcoin adoption increases, transaction fees increase based on the difficulty rate associated with transaction verification increasing. At the same time, processing time increases (it shouldn’t, inherently, but it does as the Mempool gets flooded).
In turn, then, as bitcoin adoption increases, the problems associated with its widespread use are going to increase in prominence and – at the same time – people and companies are going to start looking for alternatives. Litecoin is an incredibly stable coin with a dedicated and very large following and, at the same time, has an established network of nodes in place that are processing transactions (mining).
It stands to reason, then, that as bitcoin adoption increases, the necessity for an alternative should arise. Litecoin provides one of the best, if not the best, alternatives in the space right now, so we can expand on the previous sentence and say that as bitcoin adoption increases, the popularity of Litecoin should increase.
While many won’t highlight this connection as being one of the primary reasons that Litecoin is rising in line with bitcoin, it very much is.
So what comes next?
We expect the current correction in bitcoin to translate to some Litecoin buying and – if this is the case – we don’t see Litecoin dropping back below the $150 mark anytime soon, if ever. As the overarching trend reverses to the upside in bitcoin, we expect Litecoin to track the trend and – with the added bonus of Lee’s presence pushing for mainstream adoption – we think there’s an awful lot of run room left for Litecoin going forward.
We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest on LTC and BTC, sign up below!
Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.
Image courtesy of BTC Keychain via Flickr
Bitcoin price dumped hard on Monday, briefly slipping below $41,000, erasing gains recorded in the previous week. The premier cryptocurrency seems to have exhausted its recent rally propelled by industry vulnerabilities. At the time of writing, the world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading slightly lower at $41,385. Bitcoin’s total market cap has dipped by 2% over the past day, while the total volume of BTC tokens traded over the same period climbed by 58%.
Fundamentals
Bitcoin price has been facing retracements and a rollercoaster over the past few days after recently rocketing to a 20-month peak. On-chain data has suggested that many investors used the opportunity to take some profits, leading to a decline in the asset’s price.
Bitcoin’s price slump is mirrored in the wider crypto market, with the global crypto market cap decreasing by 1.85% over the past 24 hours to $1.55 trillion. The total crypto market volume has increased by 32% over the same period. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has plunged from a level of extreme greed to a greed level of 70, suggesting a decline in risk appetite.
Ethereum, the largest altcoin by market capitalization, is currently trading at $2,167, down almost 3% for the day. Meme coins have been hit hard by the market slump, with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu down by more than 4% over the last day.
Last week on Thursday, cryptocurrency experts took notice of…
Bitcoin price edged lower on Thursday despite optimism in wider markets on the back of the Fed’s interest rate decision. The flagship cryptocurrency has been consolidating above the critical level of $42,000 after briefly topping $44,000, its highest level in 20 months. Bitcoin was trading 0.71% lower at $42,569 at press time. BTC’s total market cap has increased by more than 3% over the last day to $832 billion, while the total volume of the asset traded over the same period jumped by 22%.
Economic Outlook
Bitcoin price has been trading sideways over the past few days, suggesting a pause in its recent rally towards $45,000. The premier cryptocurrency has decreased by 4% in the past week but remains 15.22% higher in the month to date. The digital asset has staged a significant recovery this year after a torrid 2022 in which a string of scandals, including the collapse of FTX, led to a market meltdown, undermining the credibility of the sector.
The crypto market has been buoyed by the Fed’s latest interest rate decision. The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday held its key interest rate unchanged for the third consecutive time, in line with market expectations. With the easing of the inflation rate, members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted to keep the benchmark overnight borrowing rate in a targeted range between 5.25%-5.5%.
Additionally, the central bank indicated that three rate…
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Fundamentals
Bitcoin price has posted significant gains over the past few days, climbing to its highest level since April 2022, before the crash of a stablecoin that started a litany of company failures, pummeling crypto prices. The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly topped the crucial level of $44,000 on Wednesday amid rising momentum despite being massively overbought.
According to analysts, with no spot bitcoin ETF approvals yet and the halving event five to six months away, the market is riding on FOMO. Capital has been flowing in the Bitcoin market amid enthusiasm that the launches of spot ETF will bring in billions of dollars of new investment into the crypto sector.
Investors have already started providing capital as seed money for ETF products. Notably, a recent report by CoinDesk showed that the world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, received $100,000 in capital from a seed investor for its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund…
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