In this episode of the BeInCrypto video news show, host Jessica Walker will address litecoin (LTC). Although it has nearly doubled in value this year, it has been losing ground to other altcoins. Will litecoin ever be cool again?
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Although not as explosive as some other altcoins, the token has enjoyed a slow and steady upwards trend. It started the year off at around $130 and has managed to almost double, reaching a local high of $260, at press time.
But what’s behind this climb? Is litecoin cool again, or is it being upstaged by other altcoins? Today we’ll talk about the good and bad news for litecoin, as well as its prospects for the future.
Bearish case
We’ll start with the bad news. Despite the uptrend on the chart, the litecoin community noticed that it may lose its top 10 status soon. With little growth compared to other cryptocurrencies, litecoin is only $1 billion away from losing the spot its held since its inception.
The GIF above is a look at the past decade of litecoin’s position based on its market cap. In every frame, litecoin is ranked anywhere from number two to ten.
However, altcoins like chainlink (LINK), stellar (XLM), and bitcoin cash (BCH) are all right on its tail. Some are within $1 billion striking distance of unseating litecoin. Each has had their own stint in the top ten.
But does this really reflect litecoin’s future prospects?
Institutional adoption
Institutional investors don’t seem to think so. Coinshares launched litecoin products allowing corporate and other large investors to invest in litecoin. Europe’s largest investment house has over $4 billion in assets under management.
We must also mention Grayscale, which has also been steadily accumulating litecoin. According to a recent tweet, Grayscale Litecoin holdings stand at 1.47 million LTC coins, worth almost $300 million.
Additionally, Paypal made litecoin available as a payment option for its U.S. users, alongside bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH). For now, there’s no data about how many people use litecoin, but with 377 million active users worldwide, this has to be a net positive for LTC adoption.
Network improvements
In late March, the Litecoin Foundation completed the code for its MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB), which is set to improve key features that litecoin lacks: fungibility and privacy.
The protocol is named after a fictional Harry Potter spell, and uses confidential transactions. This allows senders to encrypt the number of coins to be sent using “blinding factors” while obscuring the addresses. This vastly improves the privacy of the blockchain while also enhancing its scalability.
For the past few years, litecoin founder Charlie Lee has focused on fungibility, scalability, and privacy, seeing this as a key stage in the evolution of litecoin.
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