History of Litecoin

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Creation and transfer of coins is based on an open source cryptographic protocol and is not managed by any central authority. The coin was inspired by, and in technical details is nearly identical to, Bitcoin (BTC). Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world. Litecoin is an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralized without any central authorities. Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances. Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency. With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.

Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on October 7, 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011. It was a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, differing primarily by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins, different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead of SHA-256), and a slightly modified GUI. During the month of November 2013, the aggregate value of Litecoin experienced massive growth which included a 100% leap within 24 hours. Litecoin reached a $1 billion market capitalization in November 2013. By late November 2017, its market capitalization was US$4,600,081,733 ($85.18 per coin). By mid-December 2017, the coin's marketcap had reached US$20,000,000,000 and each litecoin was valued at approximately US$371.00.

In May 2017, Litecoin became the first of the top 5 (by market cap) cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness. Later in May of the same year, the first Lightning Network transaction was completed through Litecoin, transferring 0.00000001 LTC from Zürich to San Francisco in under one second.

Litecoin is different in some ways from Bitcoin. The Litecoin Network aims to process a block every 2.5 minutes, rather than Bitcoin's 10 minutes. The developers claim that this allows Litecoin to have faster transaction confirmation. Litecoin uses scrypt in its proof-of-work algorithm, a sequential memory-hard function requiring asymptotically more memory than an algorithm which is not memory-hard.

Due to Litecoin's use of the scrypt algorithm, FPGA and ASIC devices made for mining Litecoin are more complicated to create and more expensive to produce than they are for Bitcoin, which uses SHA-256 The exponential rise in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies attracted a number of new traders who embarked on a buying spree - mainly purchasing cryptocurrencies using credit cards. Following the huge decline in 2018, the top 5 credit card companies have either banned or have announced a ban on cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards. As a result, late entrants to the rally, who had purchased cryptocurrency using borrowed money and are nursing losses of more than 50 percent will now be forced to square up their positions.

This is likely to result in another round of panic selling, which will shake out the weak hands. These lower levels will attract a new set of investors who believe in the technology and have been waiting to invest at the right opportunity. Let us identify these lower levels that can attract buyers.

BTC/USD

On February 02, Bitcoin saw some buying at the $8,000 levels. However, the pullback failed to reach our target objective of $10,700 for the short-term traders. We anticipated a pullback to the 20-day EMA, but in a selling frenzy, the pullbacks only lasted around 1-3 days. After a day of recovery, the cryptocurrency has turned down once again. Today, the price has broken below the low formed on February 2. If the bears succeed in sustaining below the $8,000 levels, the BTC/USD pair is likely to slide down to $6,239, which is the pattern target from the break of the descending triangle.

Below this, the fall can extend to the $5,450 levels, which will effectively retrace 100 percent of the latest leg of the rally. We believe that the panic selling to the above-mentioned levels offers a good buying opportunity to the long-term investors. However, investors should scale into the positions instead of buying all at once. We recommend buying about 30 to 40 percent of the desired allocation in the range of $5,500 to $5,800.

ETH/USD

In our previous analysis, we expected some resistance at the $1,025 levels. On February 3, Ethereum turned down from a high of $999. We had also suggested long positions on a decline to the $770 to $820 levels with a stop loss of $700. We still believe that the $770 to $785 range is a strong support zone for the ETH/USD pair, however, if this support zone breaks, a slide to $640 is likely. The 78.6 percent retracement of the latest leg of the rally is at $611.34 levels. Hence, we foresee strong buying in the zone of $611.34 to $640. However, the 20-day EMA and the 50-day EMA are likely to complete a bearish crossover, which is a negative development. Therefore we do not recommend any fresh trades.

BCH/USD We expected Bitcoin Cash to pull back to the downtrend line, but it turned down from $1,316.07 levels. Today, it has broken below the $1,000 support. Now, it is likely to fall to the next critical support of $854.3135. We do not find any signs of a bottom on the BCH/USD pair barring the fact that the RSI is close to entering into the oversold territory. Despite this, we want to see some buying emerge before making any trade on it.

XRP/USD Ripple is also retesting the lows formed on February 2. Compared to other cryptocurrencies, it has still not fallen below the February 2 low of $0.63252. This points to likely exhaustion of selling in the XRP/USD pair. Also, the $0.61 is the final support. After this time, we may see a further fall to $0.24 levels. It will become positive in the short-term after it breaks out of the downtrend line. Until then, all pullbacks are likely to be sold by the bears.

XLM/USD Stellar could not build on the sharp pullback of February 2. It has again broken below the support of $0.41 and is likely to retest the critical support of $0.296. If this support breaks, the XLM/USD pair is likely to fall to the support line of the descending channel, which should offer strong support. If this level also breaks, a fall to $0.1 might take place. We recommend waiting for the trend to change from down to up before initiating any fresh positions.

LTC/USD The pullback in Litecoin was stronger than the other cryptocurrencies because it reached close to the 20-day EMA. This shows interest in buying at the lower levels. If the bulls accumulate the price close to levels between $107 and $120 levels, it will point to a possible bottom. We might be interested in getting the LTC/USD pair if it breaks out of the $175 levels. On the other hand, if the bears succeed in breaking below the lows of February 2, a fall to the final support of $84.708 is likely. Due to this uncertainty, we do not recommend any long positions on Litecoin at the moment.

XEM/USD NEM is retesting the lows formed on February 2. If the bulls manage to hold the lows, a move towards the downtrend line might take place. If the lows breakdown, we are most likely to see a fall to the next support level of $0.31672. The XEM/USD pair will become positive in the short-term once it sustains above the downtrend line.

NEO/USD Until today, NEO had been a relative outperformer as it was still trading above the 50-day SMA. Today, it has broken below the 50-day SMA, the critical support of $93.53 and the low formed February 2. t still holds minor support at $86.143, below which it can fall to $64.83 levels. If this level also fails to hold, the NEO/USD pair can fall to $27.13, which is the target objective on the breakdown from the symmetrical triangle pattern. Considering this recent weakness, we recommend holding any trades until further notice.

The news is that a company called LitePay is about to launch the first ever point of sale technology that will allow retailers to accept Litecoin from customers. The technology allows for real-time exchange of Litecoin to fiat (local fiat, that is) meaning the retailer isn’t having to take on any fluctuation risk and it’s supported by a fee payment of 1% (which compares to the 3% or more that’s associated with current POS methods – MasterCard, Visa, etc. It’s worth noting here that the report hit press through the Express website, so initial claims of a near-term launch (especially given that the outlet based its report on ‘insider information’) were dubious. Shortly after the reports hitting press, however, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee Tweeted the article, suggesting that there’s some credence to the near term launch expectations. He also followed up the Tweet with another detailing the near-term launch of UnoCoin (and Litecoin’s listing as one of a handful of coins that will be available through the exchange) and a report outlining the launch of Litepal, which again looks to be a full suite Litecoin payments processing company. To put all this another way, it’s about to get a whole lot easier for people to use Litecoin to buy things in the real world and for brick and mortar retailers to accept cryptocurrency for goods and services.

If this had hit press a couple of months ago, we’d be seeing a spike in the price of LTC in anticipation of the realization of improved access translating to an increased demand for the asset. Instead, however, you only have to look at the chart above to see what’s actually happened – LTC is down another 16% versus fiat and is even a few points lower against BTC over the last twenty-four hours. The thing to recognize here is this: these developments cannot stay unnoticed forever. Once the current sentiment cloud lifts and markets start to act rationally (in the sense of responding to developments as opposed to selling off on assets regardless of what’s going on under the hood), the LTC space is going to cash in on the stack of news and developments that’s waiting under the radar right now.