Litecoin Price Doubles in 2019: 5 Cataylsts Fueling the Rally

The broader crypto market has been stuck in a narrow trading range over the short-term, but there’s one cryptocurrency whose value has nearly doubled year-to-date, and that’s Litecoin (LTC). The fifth-biggest coin, which is currently trading at $60.75, has benefitted from a few high-profile partnerships inked by Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, not to mention a push toward confidential transactions.

1. MAINSTREAM LITECOIN ADOPTION

The Litecoin team are masters at getting merchants to integrate LTC payments into their systems. Just ask Bob Moore Auto Group, which according to Lee “signed on with @AliantPayment to accept Litecoin at their dealerships,” starting with an Oklahoma City location. This means customers can pay for their Subaru with LTC.

2. ATTRACTIVE FEES

Cryptocurrency is known (not always correctly) for its cheap fees versus traditional money transfers and credit card transactions. Litecoin is no different, as evidenced by a November 2018 transaction worth $62 million that only cost the sender $0.50 in fees on the Litecoin network. Also, Litecoin Core version 0.17.1, which is available on GitHub for testing, is designed to slash transaction fees even further, by 10x, which could also explain the bullish sentiment surrounding the coin. As a result, transactions can be completed in near real-time.

3. SPEEDY TRANSACTIONS

Blockchain transactions have been plagued by slow confirmation times at the point of sale. If crypto is ever going to achieve wide-scale adoption, they must speed up to compete with the seconds it takes to make a purchase using Visa and Mastercard.

The Lightning Network is a layer-two technology that is designed to accelerate Bitcoin and Litecoin blockchain transaction confirmation times to “seconds or milliseconds.” Nearly 5,000 merchants currently support Litecoin Lightning Network payments via Coingate.

4. GREATER USER PRIVACY

Last month, the Litecoin Foundation announced a collaboration with privacy coin Beam to potentially integrate the Mimblewimble protocol, which would add scale and privacy to the cryptocurrency.

5. UPCOMING LITECOIN HALVING

Litecoin’s next halving event is expected to occur in August 2019, which will slash the mining reward in half and reduce the number of LTC entering the market. This supply/demand dynamic could already be baked into the LTC price – or could fuel future gains.

Litecoin Price Doubles in 2019: 5 Cataylsts Fueling the Rally, CCN, Mar 20