While Litecoin’s (LTC) price action has mirrored the weakness of the broader cryptocurrency market in 2022, the network has seen more developer activity compared to its more popular sibling, Bitcoin.
Litecoin’s highly anticipated, privacy-focused Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) upgrade went live in May 2022, giving Litecoin users the option to send and receive ‘confidential’ transactions on its network.
The MWEB upgrade has improved Litecoin’s prospects as the go-to payments system for transactions where confidentiality is a priority. Litecoin’s largest upgrade ever also comes on the back of the development of a token-creation platform and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace on its network.
“Historically, Litecoin has been known to follow [the] development of its similarly-coded sibling, Bitcoin, but with the activation of projects such as MWEB, Litecoin has initiated the process of building its own road,” read a Litecoin Foundation blog post on 16 June 2022.
Let’s dive deep into the world of Litecoin and read about its MWEB upgrade and the latest news, price action and on-chain data. You will also find Litecoin price predictions for 2022 and beyond from experts.
What is Litecoin (LTC)?
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer decentralised cryptocurrency that aims to be the “future of global payments”.
Litecoin’s design was inspired by that of Bitcoin (BTC), and it shares numerous features with the leading cryptocurrency, such as the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, halving events and a hard cap.
Litecoin launched in 2011 as “a lite version of Bitcoin”. It aimed to improve on Bitcoin’s shortcomings to create a cryptocurrency that is more practical to use in everyday transactions.
The 10-year-old cryptocurrency network provides faster transactions at lower fees than Bitcoin. As of 12 September 2022, data from crypto analytics company Blockchair showed block confirmation time was about two minutes on the Litecoin network compared to nine minutes on the Bitcoin network. The average 24-hour transaction fee on Litecoin was close to nil, compared to $1.06 on the Bitcoin network.
Litecoin has an algorithmic architecture called Scrypt that requires less processing power compared to Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm. This lowers entry barriers for miners and promotes decentralisation of mining power.
Another difference is the maximum supply of the two cryptocurrencies. While both are hard capped, Litecoin is limited to 84 million units, while Bitcoin is capped at 21 million units.
As Bitcoin has evolved into a store of value, Litecoin is on a path to become the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold”, according to its founder Charlie Lee.
Today, Litecoin is among the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies for payment. Crypto-native payment processors that accept Litecoin payments include Coinbase, BitPay, NOWPayments, CoinGate, Aliant and CoinPayments. E-commerce platforms including Shopify and WooCommerce also give online stores the option to accept Litecoin payments.
Digital currency asset manager Grayscale said in a report:
“Given Litecoin’s ability to process transactions in a faster, cheaper, and more accessible manner, it may be able to target entities with high transaction volumes, including exchanges and merchants.”
However, over the years, Litecoin’s rate of adoption has fallen behind that of Bitcoin. Data compiled by Messari showed that active Bitcoin addresses numbered about 42.9 million on 12 September 2022, dwarfing 7.3 million active addresses on Litecoin.
“It is a conflict of interest for me to hold LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence,” Lee said.
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Litecoin founder: Charlie Lee
Litecoin founder Charlie Lee is a computer scientist who was working as software engineer at Google when he founded Litecoin in 2011. Lee also worked at Coinbase (COIN) from July 2013 until June 2017, after which he left to focus on Litecoin full time.
Over the years, Litecoin critics have often pointed out Lee’s divestment of his entire Litecoin stake in 2017 as a potential red flag. Lee announced the divestment in a Reddit post on 20 December 2017.
“There will always be a doubt on whether any of my actions were to further my own personal wealth above the success of Litecoin and crypto-currency in general. For this reason, in the past days, I have sold/donated all my LTC,” Lee said.
Lee added that he will not quit Litecoin and will spend all his time working on the project.
“When Litecoin succeeds, I will still be rewarded in lots of different ways, just not directly via ownership of coins. I now believe this is the best way for me to continue to oversee Litecoin’s growth,” Lee said.
As of September 2022, Lee remains a core member of the Litecoin community and is a member of The Litecoin Foundation, a Singapore-based non-profit that promotes the adoption and development of Litecoin.
Litecoin news: MWEB upgrade and more
The MWEB upgrade is Litecoin’s biggest upgrade to date. The privacy upgrade, which was first introduced as a Litecoin improvement proposal in 2019, was finally implemented in May 2022.
According to Litecoin’s website, MWEB can be seen as an extension of Litecoin’s main chain, which can be used to send coins to the extension block and back to the main chain.
Litecoin’s website said users will have the option to send confidential Litecoin transactions, in which the amounts sent will be known only by the sender and receiver. The upgrade will also increase transaction throughput and allow MWEB addresses to hide account balances.
“One has the choice of continuing to make standard transactions on the main chain or move over to MWEB to gain advantage of its added confidentiality features. By being an opt-in feature, exchanges and wallets have the option of integrating it and would be highly recommended, but not obliged to do so,” said Litecoin.
“In terms of fungibility and privacy, I believe MWEB gets you 90% there. For most people that’s good enough. It’s the difference between living in a glass house vs living in a house with windows. For people who need 100% privacy, they can live in a house with no windows,” added Lee.
The introduction of the privacy feature could also, however, be negative for the future of Litecoin. Two of South Korea’s leading centralised cryptocurrency exchanges said they will conduct a review as to whether to end transaction support and delist Litecoin from their exchanges.
Bithumb said in a press release that it was obliged to “to prevent the risk of money laundering and public threatening through anonymous digital asset transactions,” as it suspended LTC deposits and withdrawals on 23 May 2022.
In addition to the MWEB upgrade, Litecoin saw the launch of a token creation platform called OmniLite in 2021 which allows developer to create custom cryptocurrencies and design NFTs on its network.
2022 saw the launch of the first NFT marketplaceon the Litecoin network, LiteVerse. Additionally, developers have also announced the development of a Litecoin-based Lightning Network mobile wallet and user-friendly MWEB-integrated mobile wallets.
In April 2022, a digital currency research institute called LTC Labs was formed to support and accelerate project development on the Litecoin network.
According to the Litecoin Foundation, LTC Labs is structured as a distributed autonomous organisation (DAO) with 10 founding members, one of whom is Litecoin creator Charlie Lee.
On-chain analysis: Next halving event, large holder concentration and more
Litecoin aims to provide a global payment solution at near-zero fees and free of centralised influence. It has a maximum supply of 84 million.
Miners are rewarded with Litecoins every time a block is produced. According to its website, Litecoin’s genesis block rewarded miners 50 Litecoins per block.
Like Bitcoin, Litecoin’s block mining rewards will be reduced by half approximately every four years, or after every 840,000 mined blocks. The block rewards will keep halving until they become zero, which is predicted to happen by 2142.
Litecoin’s most recent halving event took place in 2019. The network is expected to see its third halving event in 2023 after its 2.52 millionth block. As of 12 September 2022, the network has finalised over 2.3 million blocks and its current block mining reward rate is 12.5 coins per block.
Over 71.15 million litecoins were in circulation, representing about 85% of capped supply, as of 12 September 2022, data from CoinMarketCap showed.
According to Litecoin’s origin paper published on bitcointalk.org by Lee in 2011, only 150 Litecoins were pre-mined.
Data from IntoTheBlock showed Litecoin’s concentration of large holders came in at 50% of circulating supply, compared to Bitcoin’s 10%, as of 12 September 2022. About 34% of LTC holders held their tokens for over a year.
Litecoin: Price analysis
As of 12 September 2022, Litecoin was the 22nd-largest cryptocurrency network with a market capitalisation of about $4.4bn.
The payment-focused crypto’s all-time high was the $412.96 hit on 10 May 2021. Litecoin was unable to scale this peak when the likes of Bitcoin and Ether hit record highs in November 2021.
Litecoin has plunged alongside the broader cryptocurrency market in 2022, with prices falling nearly 60% year-to-date, as of 12 September 2022. LTC was 85% below its all-time high at the time of writing.
More recently, Litecoin has rebounded to post a gain of 28% in the last 30 days to trade at about $62, as of 12 September 2022.
Litecoin price prediction for 2022 and beyond
In a short-term Litecoin crypto price prediction, CoinCodex saw the LTC price falling to $58.95 by 17 September. Its one-month LTC price prediction on 12 September 2022 saw the coin falling further to $51.73 by mid-October.
WalletInvestor’s Litecoin price prediction for 2022 saw the token trading at an average price of $98.52 by year-end. WalletInvestor’s Litecoin price prediction for 2025 saw LTC gaining further to trade at an average price of $143.99 by the end of 2025.
Elsewhere, PricePrediction held a bullish view on LTC and saw the token trading at an average price of $1,485.50 in its Litecoin price prediction for 2030.
Finally, DigitalCoinPrice’s Litecoin coin price prediction expected the token to trade at an average price of $82 in 2022 and rise to over $309 in five years’ time.
When looking at Litecoin price predictions, investors should remember that the market is volatile, and that analysts’ LTC price predictions could well turn out to be wrong. Forecasts shouldn’t be used as a substitute for your own research.
Always conduct your own due diligence and remember that your decision to trade or invest should depend on your risk tolerance, expertise in the market, portfolio size and goals. Never trade money that you cannot afford to lose.
FAQs
Is Litecoin a good investment?
As of 12 September 2022, Litecoin was the 22nd-largest cryptocurrency network, with a market capitalisation of about $4.4bn.
Only you can decide whether Litecoin is the right investment for you. You should do research into Litecoin’s potential and base your decision on your portfolio composition, investment goals and risk profile, among other factors. Never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.
Will Litecoin go up?
Litecoin’s all-time low stands at the $1.11 it hit more than seven years ago on 14 January 2015. A bearish Litecoin trend has kept the coin over 85% below its record high, as of 12 September 2022.
When looking at Litecoin crypto price predictions investors should remember that the market is very volatile. Outlook and forecasts are based on inferences drawn from past performance by analysts and may go wrong, due to market gyrations, changes in policy and other unknown parameters.
Investors should also consider the token’s collaborations, partnership deals and fundamentals.
Should I invest in Litecoin?
As of 12 September 2022, Litecoin was the 22nd-largest cryptocurrency network with a market capitalisation of about $4.4bn.
Only you can decide whether Litecoin is the right investment for you. You should research Litecoin’s potential and base your decision on your portfolio composition, investment goals and risk profile, among other factors. Never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.
Further reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://youtu.be/Mj7JGbk7eBA
