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Litecoin LTC (LTC) was created back in 2011 as one of the earliest forks of the cryptocurrency OG, Bitcoin. Like many other blockchain and cryptocurrency projects promise, Litecoin was developed with the intention of improving on Bitcoin by offering a cryptocurrency better suited to high volume, low value, everyday transactions.
This supposed “lite” cryptocurrency has a block time that’s about 25-percent less than Bitcoin’s. In theory, it should process and validate transactions quicker than Bitcoin.
Despite sounding like it solves many of the issues that plague Bitcoin, Litecoin has not reached the same market cap as its parent coin. That said, at press time, it’s still the highest ranking Bitcoin fork according to CoinMarketCap, taking 5th spot by market cap.
LTC/USD 2018 recap
Like most other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin finished off 2018 with an overarching downward trend from where it opened the year at $231.67. It made a gain of 38.5 percent in the first week to reach $320.78, but this would be the highest price LTC would see all year. By February, it dropped by nearly 63 percent at $119.54.
The Bitcoin spinoff had a third brief rally across Q2 2018, where prices rose from $116.49 on April 1, 2018 to $168 by the end of the month.
Credit: eToroLitecoin’s 2018 performance overviewBut from there onwards, Litecoin was unable to escape the correction that plighted the entire cryptocurrency market last year, and it ended December 2018 87 percent down on its opening value, closing the year at $29.36
LTC/USD 2019 Q1 review
Despite ending the previous year on a low note, overall, Litecoin has got off to a strong start in 2019. Any new investors to this cryptocurrency will have seen gains on this particular coin over starting positions at the year opening.
LTC opened the year at $30.99 and within 10 days witnessed a 25 percent jump to $38.94. Indeed, it’s certainly not in the same league as the rally LTC saw at the end of 2017, but it was a confident start to the year.
Credit: eToroLitecoin’s early Q2 performance overviewUnfortunately this positive bump was short lived. By mid-January LTC’s price dropped to levels inline with its year open. It spent the next four weeks hovering around this price at around $30. While potentially disappointing to some investors, for those that held their nerve the outlook was much improved as we moved well into what remained of the quarter.
Across a four day period from February 6 to February 10 Litecoin’s price shot up by nearly 42 percent, from a somewhat stable $32.20 to $45.71. This swift jump in LTC’s price marked the start of a period of sustained growth which continued right to the end of the quarter.
Credit: eToroLitecoin’s end of Q2 performance overviewLTC saw another substantial jump in the first week of March which saw its price jump from $45.28 to just over $56.
By the close of the quarter Litecoin was sitting a comfortable 93.7 percent up on its year open at a hair over $60.
Slow and steady wins the race
There have not been many huge swings in price in Litecoin this year, investors looking to make big short term gains were likely left in the dark. It has been, uncharacteristically for a cryptocurrency, acting positively and stable.
Indeed, 2019 is shaping up to be a big year for Litecoin, and this slow and steady growth will likely continue until August when the coin is expected to undergo its reward halving. The halving will reduce the Litecoin mining reward from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC per block.
Typically, coins rise in value in the months leading up to a mining reward halving. This isn’t the first halving that Litecoin is undergoing. LTC underwent a halving way back in 2015, and in the months leading up to the event its value rose by around 700%. Whether we’ll see such huge increases this year remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t come as a total surprise.
As one of the earliest forks of Bitcoin, Litecoin is one of the most proven cryptocurrencies. Its creator, Charlie Lee, may not blow its trumpet as loudly as the purveyors of other Bitcoin forks that have since emerged, but it has slowly and steadily continued to develop over the years. Maintaining its relevance in a competitive space.
As know-your-customer and anti-money laundering regulations get implemented across the globe, making cryptocurrency payments less anonymous, Charlie Lee has vowed to bring confidential transactions to the platform at some point in 2019. For those bullish on privacy coins, be sure to keep Litecoin on your radar as the year continues.
Fungibility is the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin. Now that the scaling debate is behind us, the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy.
I am now focused on making Litecoin more fungible by adding Confidential Transactions. 🚀
— Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) January 28, 2019
Looking forward
It looks to be a strong start to Q2 for Litecoin, as all markets saw a strong upheaval in prices, seemingly a knock on improvement from a surge in the price of Bitcoin. Litecoin jumped from around $60 to near $70 in a matter of hours. With prices increasing across the board this could finally be a sign of the end of the bear market.
Credit: eToroLitecoin’s early Q2 performanceLitecoin’s speedy operation has certainly made it popular over recent years, and with Charlie Lee’s determination, it has developed a project that is certainly standing the test of crypto time.
Given Lee’s continued focus and with Litecoin expected to witness another halving before the year is out, it’s certainly looking like “the faster Bitcoin” will continue to mature suitably in the eyes of investors. But of course, this is cryptocurrency, and anything is possible.
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Published April 24, 2019 — 14: 56 UTC