Long
Little Brother: Out of the shadow and into the Lite
Updated
Full disclosure, our first foray into Cryptocurrency was Litecoin back in 2015. It was the first coin we experimented mining with because it was cheap enough and could be mined with a GPU. It seemed like a good choice, because LTC was the underdog and mining had not become centralised and monopolised at is it had already become by then with Bitcoin. So we have a soft spot for it, but to be honest, not until recently did we start building our holdings.
Unless you've been under a rock, you've heard of the BTC scaling debate. Bitcoin is considered the older brother, always casting a shadow on all other Altcoins. So in his shadow, Litecoin has been able to learn from Bitcoin’s mistakes and so it has come to be seen as the coin that can implement what Bitcoin can’t for a lot of reasons. BTC's problems like stagnancy, divided and toxic leadership, inability to upgrade for the better. These things are both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. But many investors are realising how it shines, and how it doesn’t.
As time goes on, it has become clear that Bitcoin’s usage excels as a safe keep, like gold, but for every day usage, it’s not the fastest, or the most economical crypto by far. Countless coins have risen up with faster tech, but BTC holds it’s position, because it holds #1 in the market.
The battle is definitely on for a new contender for micro payments. We all want a safe coin we can hold our assets in like Bitcoin, but for everyday usage Bitcoin is failing, and failing fast. It’s heavy, slow and expensive once purchases go below a certain $ threshold. Like gold, it’s great to keep in the safe but lugging it around for every day usage makes little sense. A solution was gradually voted for called Segwit which would enable Bitcoin to use the Lightning Network for greater efficiency, but even though presented to voted on by the Bitcoin community since last year, there has been no progress or resolution and voting to activate is stuck at ~30% of the 95% majority needed. Needless to say, the arguments continue and the king is losing followers.
There are many recent contenders for the #2 spot to do what Bitcoin can’t: Dash, Monero and although not designed for some believe Ethereum. Each however has a lot of big trust issues and the sentiment is not great. Whether it’s pre-mining or a resentment of the helm, the crowd is not cheering unanimously for any of them.
Enter Litecoin. Litecoin has an established brand already, positioned for years as the silver to bitcoin’s gold, and the sentiment toward it is overly steady and positive. Created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, also known as Satoshilite is a serious and likeable character who has been able to unify the LTC mining community in adopting Segwit at a speed that is admirable. At the time of writing this, Charlie has garnered the support of 69% of the 75% votes needed to activate Segwit. You can read about his vision for Litecoin and Segwit here (segwit.org/my-vision-for-segwit-and-lightning-networks-on-litecoin-and-bitcoin-cf95a7ab656b). All of this exuberance has driven up the LTC price several fold already in the last weeks and shows no real signs of slowing down.
What’s more, is that despite several years of attempts to climb up and move out of the shadow of BTC, Litecoin’s community hasn’t given up. It’s that keep going and striving spirit, to put aside the ego and hold let’s do this attitude which Bitcoin has lost. It’s a spirit that many regular people relate to and it's something an army of investors are beginning to rally behind.
Unless you've been under a rock, you've heard of the BTC scaling debate. Bitcoin is considered the older brother, always casting a shadow on all other Altcoins. So in his shadow, Litecoin has been able to learn from Bitcoin’s mistakes and so it has come to be seen as the coin that can implement what Bitcoin can’t for a lot of reasons. BTC's problems like stagnancy, divided and toxic leadership, inability to upgrade for the better. These things are both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. But many investors are realising how it shines, and how it doesn’t.
As time goes on, it has become clear that Bitcoin’s usage excels as a safe keep, like gold, but for every day usage, it’s not the fastest, or the most economical crypto by far. Countless coins have risen up with faster tech, but BTC holds it’s position, because it holds #1 in the market.
The battle is definitely on for a new contender for micro payments. We all want a safe coin we can hold our assets in like Bitcoin, but for everyday usage Bitcoin is failing, and failing fast. It’s heavy, slow and expensive once purchases go below a certain $ threshold. Like gold, it’s great to keep in the safe but lugging it around for every day usage makes little sense. A solution was gradually voted for called Segwit which would enable Bitcoin to use the Lightning Network for greater efficiency, but even though presented to voted on by the Bitcoin community since last year, there has been no progress or resolution and voting to activate is stuck at ~30% of the 95% majority needed. Needless to say, the arguments continue and the king is losing followers.
There are many recent contenders for the #2 spot to do what Bitcoin can’t: Dash, Monero and although not designed for some believe Ethereum. Each however has a lot of big trust issues and the sentiment is not great. Whether it’s pre-mining or a resentment of the helm, the crowd is not cheering unanimously for any of them.
Enter Litecoin. Litecoin has an established brand already, positioned for years as the silver to bitcoin’s gold, and the sentiment toward it is overly steady and positive. Created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, also known as Satoshilite is a serious and likeable character who has been able to unify the LTC mining community in adopting Segwit at a speed that is admirable. At the time of writing this, Charlie has garnered the support of 69% of the 75% votes needed to activate Segwit. You can read about his vision for Litecoin and Segwit here (segwit.org/my-vision-for-segwit-and-lightning-networks-on-litecoin-and-bitcoin-cf95a7ab656b). All of this exuberance has driven up the LTC price several fold already in the last weeks and shows no real signs of slowing down.
What’s more, is that despite several years of attempts to climb up and move out of the shadow of BTC, Litecoin’s community hasn’t given up. It’s that keep going and striving spirit, to put aside the ego and hold let’s do this attitude which Bitcoin has lost. It’s a spirit that many regular people relate to and it's something an army of investors are beginning to rally behind.
Note
Recently when Litecoin’s biggest mining pool recently started signalling for Segwit the whole market has became hopeful and an under current in the online scene of rooting for the underdog. A hope that there could be change. It’s like Litecoin is what Obama was to the Americans. Change. Every time the percentage of miners signalling jumps, so does the price. (See segwit.co/ltc) and as each day passes it looks like Segwit activating is almost a sure thing. The odds of the price continuing on this upward stampede for Litecoin seem similar. The question is, will the price dump on the news of Segwit activation? That’s hard to say, naturally, there will be those who believe that is the peak and if you are a day trader looking to eek out some small profits then it might make sense to glue your red eyes to the screen and haggle it out. But our forecast is different and we see a different scenario possibly unfolding. A scenario where LTC holdings actually multiply several fold for some long term investments. We see most bitcoin holders downloading the Litecoin wallet and increasing their holdings to experiment with Segwit to see how it lives up to the hype, and we’re also going to see an army of developers shift their focus to it since Segwit will enable new possibilities.
You can expect if Segwit activates on LTC a lot of protest buying going on, as believers of it literally jump ship from BTC to it as a way of signalling their support. Following that the coming weeks you can expect a frenzy on all the social channels as people share their positive (or perhaps negative) thoughts about the whole scenario.
It’s likely we’re going to see a Bitcoin price dump as some serious too-much-caffeine driven fear selling kicks into this kiddy market. Very very turbulent times ahead. Invest wisely.
Note
LTC looking like it's about to go parabolic. 15% since 8hrs when we posted earlier. Press play. The question is, are we 30% from the top or 10% from the bottom?
Note
Things playing out for LTC very nicely here. A strong gradual bull climb towards the Lite.On Twitter Charlie reached out to Brian Armstrong with the following:
"Litecoin @GDAX vol is over 10M. @brian_armstrong, I think it's time we let people easily buy LTC with fiat on @coinbase. What do you say? :D"
Brian's response:
I'm in - lets do it!
Vital that people can rally behind a leader for long term success. Litecoin looks more and more everyday that it has all the ingredients to uphold it's promise of being the silver to bitcoins gold.
Possible prediction? Over the coming weeks we might see LTC go from ~560m market cap it holds as of writing this, to possible $1-1.5b, positing itself either closely behind Ripple, or #3. At this place, we can expect LTC's to hold a value anywhere ~30USD.
Trade active
LTC's largest mining pool f2pool announce they do not believe Segwit activation has anything to do with price rise. Debate has followed on twitter (see: twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/850048867160662016) and many holders have taken to writing to f2pool to explain it is because of SW that they invested.Note
3 years of accumulation. Zooming out you can see we are on the verge of breaking long overdue bear trend. We just touched the line. Next stop? Potential ATH's are on the way. Note
After much community effort, Litecoin's mining leaders restarted signally Segwit. Which followed with a retest of the great resistance above. The question still remains - how high can it go?Many wonder if all of this growth is due to Segwit(SW), but SW, although a large part of the immediate short term growth is just a small part of a much greater play. As I wrote previously, a combination of Charlie's leadership and ability to bring change amidst a Bitcoin never-ending feud. The realisation that LTC just may keep it's promise of being the silver to bitcoin's gold means its growth could be 3-10 fold even still from here. Currently holding 4th largest market cap of USD 533m, things will really get interesting once it moves above Ripple's (XRP) cap of $1,2b. That brings LTC at about USD $23. The picture picture however is the possibility of gradually pushing aside Ethereum (ETH) at #2 - which is really what the big battle is for right now. Who will really be the silver to bitcoins gold?
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