Litecoin has always been one of the most underappreciated cryptocurrencies. Although it may not offer anything spectacular, it is still the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. Over the past few months, things have changed in a positive manner for LTC and its community. The activation of SegWit has been a big milestone for the ecosystem. Over the past few days, there have been two additional milestones for Litecoin. LTC reached a value of $60 and its market grew to over $3bn.
The growth of Litecoin throughout 2017 is often overlooked by traders and investors. Most people focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum these days. Additionally, many alternative currencies have seen their “flavor of the week” pump action as well. Litecoin, on the other hand, has taken the slow and steady approach. So far, those efforts are paying off in a big manner. Last night, the value of one LTC surpassed the $60 mark. Additionally, the market cap now sits at $3.2bn. Both of these changes are quite significant, to say the least.
Two Major Milestones for Litecoin
It has to be said, Litecoin has been a flat-valued currency for a long time. After its initial pump to $31 back in 2013, the price kept declining. For most of 2014, 2015, and 2016, LTC saw no significant value increase or declines. In early January of 2017, one could buy an LTC for $4.62. The market cap has evolved from under $250m to over $3bn in just a few months. This shows there is a lot of bullish momentum as far as LTC is concerned. Early investors’ patience has certainly been rewarded, that much is evident.
Litecoin reached 2 milestones today: $60 and $3B marketcap! pic.twitter.com/v0W7mYO7LI
— Charlie Lee Ⓜ️🕸️ (@SatoshiLite) August 27, 2017
A lot of people are wondering why this momentum takes place right now. Ever since the SegWit deployment on the LTC network, there has been bullish momentum. Additionally, with cross-chain atomic swaps soon becoming a reality, Litecoin looks a lot more competitive. It is seemingly better than Bitcoin in every single way, except for merchant adoption. Its lower fees and faster confirmations can certainly work as an advantage to entice more retailers, though. Bringing LTC payments to the masses will be a major challenge, to say the least.
For the time being, Bithumb is the main driving force behind this LTC price increase. Their trading volume represents nearly 25% of all LTC trades. OKCoin and Huobi are also very bullish on this altcoin, by the look of things. It’s always good to see fiat currency pairs dominate the charts in this regard. It means fresh money is coming into cryptocurrency as a whole. Both the Korean Won and Chinese Yuan have always been strong trading markets for any cryptocurrency. Right now, the momentum is in Litecoin’s camp, to say the least.
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