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Litecoin LTC (LTC) was created in 2011 as one of the first Bitcoin spin-offs. The Google employee Charlie Lee, his creator, has promised – even what many others have done to follow – to improve Bitcoin's efficiency for daily transactions.
An average blockage of Litecoin's blockchain takes only 2.5 minutes to process, compared to the 10-minute Bitcoin. Its developers say this helps speed up transactions, even if sometimes at the expense of security.
This should help a lot of traders who only require small transactions and can afford a reduction in security. If they need more security, the argument is that they can still wait for further transaction confirmations just like they do with Bitcoin.
The promised improvements did not help Litecoin to approach Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization or adoption in its seven years of existence. However, it remains one of the best performing coins, while most of its top competitors – including Fairbrix, GeistGeld, NameCoin and SolidCoin – are all out of business or obsolete.
Review of LTC / USD performance
In 2017, LTC stopped the monotony that it saw in 2016, recording an increase of almost 5000 percent between January-December from $ 4.33 to $ 239. The market correction in 2018 lowered the price of 88% to $ 26.05.
LTC opened the year at $ 231.67 and achieved a 38.5 percent gain in the first week at $ 320.78. This is the highest price that LTC would see for the rest of the year. In February, the first week, it fell by almost 63% to $ 119.54.
LTC achieved a significant gain by March with two successive peaks on February 14 and February 20 reaching $ 250, gains credited to the launch of LitPay, an aspiring Litecoin merchant processor that ultimately failed. But the same market correction that affected the rest of the cryptocurrencies has kept LTC down even in the rest of the year.
LTC also achieved mediocre results compared to BTC in 2018.
During the first quarter of 2018, LTC achieved significant gains over BTC, with its value rising from 0.017 BTC on January 1 to 0.024 BTC; an increase of 45%. By the third quarter, LTC started making relative losses compared to BTC.
By the first week of December, LTC is worth 0.0076 BTC, a decrease of 53% from the beginning of the year.
litecoin – Big events in 2018
In December of last year, Charlie Lee claimed to sell most of his LTC in order to avoid any conflict of interest between personal financial benefits and the promotion of the cryptocurrency he founded. Lee's decision was not appreciated by everyone in the community, and he was accused of trying to cash in the recent increase in the price of LTC and colluding with Coinbase. lee rejected the definitive allegations.
The charges did not affect the LTC market, as the cryptocurrency continued to rise after the announcement of a difficult fork called "Litecoin Cash (LCC)".
Litecoin Cash was very different from Litecoin conceptually and had no common team members. The cryptocurrency was liquidated by the Litecoin community – including Charlie Lee – like a scam. The cryptocurrency broke away from Litecoin at the end of February, but failed to leave a significant mark.
LCC launched at the price of $ 5, but initially did not see any trading. When trading started in April, the currency dropped to $ 0.12.
After the launch of the LCC, Litecoin had another bad news. In March, the commercial processor LitePay abruptly interrupted operations causing embarrassment for the Litecoin Foundation and Charlie Lee, who both extended project support and market loss for LTC.
In an unprecedented move, the Litecoin Foundation in collaboration with TokenPay purchased a 9.9 percent stake in a German bank called WEG Bank AG in May.
Litecoin was added as a trading option on its platform from the Abra cryptocurrency portfolio in March, and from giant messaging Line and US-based financial services provider, Robinhood, in July. In June, Crypto Facilities, a UK-based cryptocurrency trading company, started offering Litecoin futeco trading.
In July, Taiwan consumer electronics manufacturer HTC announced that its new "blockchain phone" Exodus support Litecoin cryptocurrency; whose founder also contributed to the development of the telephone. The Winklevoss Gemini twin cryptocurrency exchange platform also added Litecoin to its platform in October.
What to expect in 2019
Litecoin is one of the few cryptocurrencies that is making a steady technical and product growth over time. 2017 saw Litecoin become one of the first cryptocurrencies to experiment with the Segregated Witness and Lightning Network, and built it in 2018.
After being listed on Coinbase in 2017, LTC has been listed on other major platforms including Gemini and Robinhood in 2018. With HTC Exodus adding support, the 2019 roadmap for Litecoin looks promising.
Litecoin claims to be "silver for Bitcoin gold", but the cryptocurrency could in fact lose its usefulness because the rapid technical developments are made with Bitcoin which could facilitate small frequent transactions.
It is a mixed bag for Litecoin, but the Bitcoin fork has built a separate reputation. On several occasions in the first half of 2018, its growth exceeded even Bitcoin's number.
As is standard for all cryptocurrencies so far, the overall market perceptions driven by Bitcoin will likely continue to define Litecoin's overall growth trajectory throughout 2019.
Cryptocurrency is unlikely to see frequent increases and market corrections for many "alt-overs". The marketing approach and the roadmap taken by the Litecoin team could mean relative stability compared to most other cryptocurrencies.
Now that you have useful information about Litecoin's future, it's time to start investing. With eToro, a leading social trading platform, you can trade manually or copy the actions taken by the main traders, subtracting most of the stress and your investments.
This post was offered to you by eToro. eToro is a multi-asset platform that offers both investment in stocks and cryptocurrencies, as well as CFD asset trading.
Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and present a high risk of losing money quickly due to leverage. 65% of retail investor accounts lose money when they exchange CFDs with this supplier. You should consider if you understand how CFDs work and if you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Cryptocurrencies can fluctuate widely in price and therefore are not appropriate for all investors. Cryptocurrency trading is not controlled by any regulatory framework of the EU.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. This is not an investment advice. Your capital is at risk.
Published 19 December 2018 at 09:00 UTC
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