Once again Bitcoin has taken all of the fame as the week starts by hurtling almost relentlessly towards the big $10k. However smaller sibling Litecoin also recorded an all-time high of just over $90 today. Often likened to the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, Litecoin has been slow to gain momentum since its previous peak at the end of August. It has been languishing around the $55 mark for roughly two months until it broke resistance around ten days ago and has been marching upwards ever since.
Trade volumes have broken $400 million in the past 24 hours and market cap is rapidly approaching $5 billion. This puts it a number six in the crypto chart for market capacity.
The spike in interest has been caused by atomic swaps which seek to bring interoperability between altcoins and the original bitcoin. Litecoin is often viewed as a major component in the push toward atomic cross-chain transactions. Every major cryptocurrency can be traded for Litecoin on the open market.
Breaking things down further the Litecoin Rich List, a website analyzing the number of addresses and amounts held indicates that the majority of holders have less than 100 coins. With less than 3% of the wallets holding more than 100 coins. Only 69 addresses hold almost 38% of the total supply, the richest one having 1.4 million coins, currently valued at $130 million.
Litecoin is often viewed as being more stable than its bigger brother Bitcoin which has had a wild ride in the past six months. It has rapidly emerged as one of the fastest and most affordable transaction units on the market. Investors looking for innovative solutions can expect a lot from Litecoin as its popularity grows. It still remains highly affordable, unlike Bitcoin which will soon be over $10,000.
GDAX has dominated the exchanges in terms of LTC trading volume, however, South Korean Bithumb, where up to a quarter of global Litecoin trade is made, could easily take the top spot. Coinbase also lists LTC available to purchase directly with fiat, and the more exchanges listing it will result in the coin becoming more mainstream like its bigger brother.
Many altcoins have taken a beating at the expense of Bitcoin but Litecoin, and recently Ethereum, have shown strong gains and continue to trend upwards. $100 per LTC is not that far away now and 2018 could be very productive for Bitcoin’s silver.
