Litecoin is the earliest and one of the more successful bitcoin spin offs. With a market capitalisation of more than $5 billion, the digital asset now ranks number seven behind Stellar, EOS and Bitcoin Cash. Like the rest of the coins, Litecoin has slipped rather steeply this year with losses of more than 75% since January. Though it is still holding on, Litecoin has lost quite a few spots to latecomers like Bitcoin cash and EOS.
Before we go further, let’s look at where it all started. Litecoin’s creator, the outspoken Charlie Lee intended the coin to be used in daily transactions like buying groceries. For this reason, he made transactions much faster than on the bitcoin network and of course less costly. Litecoin’s also consumes less power to mine compared to bitcoin, something that many people welcome.
By his own account, Charlie Lee never intended it to compete with bitcoin. Instead, he wanted Litecoin to complement the leading cryptocurrency where it obviously has some weaknesses, like high transaction fees and long processing times. In his mind, bitcoin was more amenable to large international transfers.
Since its creation in 2011, Litecoin has remained one of the top coins. Its fate has sometimes been tied to its vocal co-founder owing to his public pronouncements on social media. His most controversial move yet was to sell all his Litecoin holdings late last year, something critics blame for a massive sell off.
Lee’s take is that he wants to show how he is not interested in cheap wealth but in the long-term development of the project. Still, this is not enough to pacify critics. The latest reports indicate he might just step down altogether to give a chance for the project to develop independently.
Strategic partnerships
But to his credit, Charlie Lee under the Litecoin Foundation has been doing a few great things to salvage the value of the once beloved coin.
News that it has acquired a stake in Germany’s WEB bank brings more hope that Litecoin might soon embark on its march towards its $366 highs in January. Then, Litecoin has become a virtual currency of sorts to transfer funds from one exchange to another especially when bitcoin and ethereum mining fees were shooting through the roof. Today, a unit sells for just about $87 leaving an obviously disgruntled community.
But as we have seen, Litecoin is still a very promising project. The stake in WEB Bank in partnership with TokenPay, a decentralised, self-verifying platform could herald a new chapter for Litecoin. Under the partnership, Litecoin will help TokenPay develop its blockchain “to implement many new additions to TokenPay’s suite of built-in product offerings.” One of them is the lightning network.
Furthermore, TokenSuisse, a leading European index tracking provider will be integrating Litecoin into WEG AG, their German banking platform as well as in their merchant services platform.
eFin, a decentralised exchange owned by TokenPay is also set to support LTC and XVG as base trading pairs.
In other words, Litecoin is slowly being brought into mainstream use through strategic partnerships and we might as well see the value of Litecoin shooting up once again in the near future. In other words, this could be a great time to buy litecoin.