A stunning new shift in the crypto markets has occurred, as Litecoin overtakes EOS in terms of market capitalization. Due to several big developments in the protocol, Litecoin’s market cap is now approximately $2.6 billion.
The rankings have been static for a while now. Bitcoin has always had the lead position, with Ripple following, and Ethereum below that. EOS held 4th place since 2018, and it is common for all the “blue chip” coins to move in tandem, so a change-up like this is rare.
The price, currently around $43, has gone through a 10% increase that is almost entirely credited to the work of its open-source developer community. They recently released improvements that address scaling and privacy concerns, and it is clear that true progress is being made.
Having a strong developer community is what ensures continual progress for a project, and the Litecoin dev team has put in many hours of work debating the best way to scale the protocol and implement all these solutions. This open-source ethos is the heart of the blockchain industry and the decentralization it brings. For long-term investors, one of the best indicators of a project’s health and utility is the amount of developer activity around it.
This is what sets apart the big projects like BTC, ETH, LTC and a few others from the altcoins that slowed down their development when the bear market hit. Projects need to be ready to weather storms and the fact that LTC has shown continued commitment to evolving says great things about their future.
Privacy Features are the Focus
Confidential Transactions and Mimblewimble are the two most prominent innovations to be released recently. They were initially developed for the Bitcoin blockchain network in 2016 but were able to be re-purposed for Litecoin’s use. This is one of the huge benefits of having your coin be extremely similar to the top coin. They can piggyback on improvements and benefit from the frenzied discussion around Bitcoin by using it to inform their future development plans.
Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, is hoping to have Confidential Transactions completely implemented by the end of 2019. It is his belief that once the scaling debate is addressed and a solution is presented, privacy will become the next focus across the industry.
These privacy focused features enable users to both send and receive payments without revealing their identities. Additionally, because less identifying information is necessary to publish these transactions, there is actually an improvement in transaction capacity.
The Current State of Affairs
There haven’t been many big moves in the crypto markets for a while, so this is an important reminder that developers are still at work, and things are still being built. This “crypto winter” ends up being somewhat of a blessing in that way, because
All of the big coins have experienced massive uptick in prices in the last few days, which is a positive turn after the bear market of recent months. Some analysts are targeting a $50 price range for LTC in the future, and this 10% bump could be the catalyst to get it there. It is nice to remember that people are still building, and there are definitely some projects that will be better positioned when the next bull market comes around.