According to data from BitPay, a leading global crypto payment service provider, Litecoin overtook Bitcoin last month as the most popular crypto used for transactions. Litecoin founder Charlie Lee once referred to Litecoin as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold and emphasized that Litecoin is his preferred choice for payments. Today, Litecoin has become one of the preferred options for most crypto users.
As one of the earliest cryptos, Litecoin has long been known as the No.1 altcoin, living under the shadow of Bitcoin. However, as the halving approaches, Litecoin has recently presented strong momentum, with a spike in network hashrate, trading volume, liquidity, and daily new addresses, and some of the figures have even reached historic highs.
LTC Hashrate Exceeds 1,000 TH/s for the First Time
According to its blockchain explorer, the LTC hashrate saw steady growth over the past month and reached 1.03 PH/s at block 2,503,485 on July 3, a new high. This is a sign that miners continue to join the LTC mining community. The increased hashrate also means that the network is now safer and stabler. According to some industry analysts, hashrate surges often signal a forthcoming price growth.
In the past week alone, Litecoin added 4,013 new blocks, 1,398 of which were from ViaBTC, the largest LTC mining pool. Only 11,782 blocks, which are expected to be mined in less than 20 days, remain until the next LTC halving.
Source: LitecoinSpace
LTC Adoption Reaches an All-Time High
On June 23, the Litecoin team tweeted that “use for payments is at an ATH,” with 167 million transactions. As the number of LTC transactions continues to grow, the revenue from daily transaction fees will also rise, which will attract droves of miners to the LTC community.
Litecoin Ranks 5th by Liquidity
Liquidity is critical in the crypto market. For investors, a crypto with high liquidity promises a better trading experience and more flexible trading strategies. Having high liquidity means that investors get to easily buy and sell the crypto without making much difference to its price. In a nutshell, high liquidity ensures stable prices and prevents market manipulation.
According to Kaiko’s Q2 Liquidity Ranking for Crypto Assets, which covered data from over 30 exchanges, Litecoin now ranks fifth by liquidity, surpassing SOL and BNB.
Source: Kaiko
Litecoin’s Open Ecosystem Sparks the LRC20 Boom
In addition to the imminent halving scheduled for August, Litecoin also owes its recent momentum to the adoption of the LTC20 standard. Since the Litecoin community launched LTC20, a forked version of BRC20, on May 2 this year, the standard has been recognized as a major contribution to the prosperity of the Litecoin ecosystem.
To compare BRC20 with LTC20, we should first take a look at BTC and LTC. Bitcoin generates a block every 10 minutes, while Litecoin produces a block every 2.5 minutes, which allows for faster confirmations. Additionally, Litecoin offers extremely low gas fees of less than $0.1 per transaction, while transaction fees on Bitcoin range from tens to hundreds of dollars. It’s clear that Litecoin has more advantages in terms of block speed, flexibility, and transaction costs.
The invention of the LTC20 standard enables the issuance of tokenized assets on Litecoin. This integration opens up new avenues for developers to create DeFi, DApps, NFTs, and other crypto-based tokenized assets on the network.
From SegWit to the Lightning Network and the MWEB privacy protocol, the Litecoin network has always been a powerhouse of innovation. As a mature crypto, Litecoin has made great strides in recent years. Furthermore, the coin’s open ecosystem and forward-looking vision lay a solid foundation for its future development.
Going forward, as the digital economy continues to evolve and the crypto market expands, Litecoin is expected to play an even bigger role as a major part of the digital economy and a tool for global payments and transfers.