There is a lot of positive momentum among Litecoin community members right now. A lot of people remain hopeful the LTC value will shoot up over the coming months. Given Litecoin’s trading volume, something is about to give sooner or later. Whether or not Litecoin will overtake Bitcoin if the UASF activation fails, remains to be seen. It is a very distinct possibility, although it is rather wishful thinking.
Could Litecoin Overtake Bitcoin in Time?
That seems to be the question a lot of people are asking themselves right now. From a technological point of view, Litecoin has gained an edge over Bitcoin. Segregated Witness is activated, fees remain low, and the Lightning Network is being developed for Litecoin as well. All of this should have sent the LTC value to well over US$100, but that has not happened. This causes a lot of confusion among Litecoin supporters. Especially when looking at how other currencies are nearly doubling in value without any major news being released.
Now that the Bitcoin UASF activation is coming up, speculation runs rampant once again. It remains doubtful there will be enough mining support for BIP148. A lot of nodes and companies pledged support for this project. However, without enough mining hashrate, the chain will not advance much further. Some people feel this “takeover’ will ultimately fail, which would create an interesting scenario. To be more precise, that scenario could see Litecoin take over from Bitcoin in terms of market cap.
While that may seem like wishful thinking, a recent comment by Luke Dashjr seems to confirm as much. He recently mentioned how “a BIP148 failure would result in Litecoin taking a lead over Bitcoin”. That is quite a controversial statement, especially from a Bitcoin developer. It is possible BIP148 will be turned into an altcoin with a POW chain if that is the case. Should this happen, the goal is to make this alternative Bitcoin chain succeed instead of Litecoin. A lot of contingency plans are put it place, by the look of things.
Rest assured a lot of Litecoin community members seemingly hope the UASF will fail. That would be quite a dramatic turn of events for Bitcoin, although it is not impossible to see it happen. Litecoin has a far more solid reputation than a forked Bitcoin clone would ever have, though. Comments such as the one by Luke Dashjr create a lot of negativity surrounding Bitcoin. That is the last thing the popular currency needs during this scalability debacle.
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