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All eyes have been on Bitcoin today as the king of crypto cranked ten percent to tap $11,800 during earlier Asian trading. The altcoins have been slow to react as usual but they are starting to wake up now with Litecoin leading the way in a post-halving pump.
Litecoin Spikes 14 Percent
Usually price pumps happen before halving events but Litecoin has started spiking a few hours ago. From an intraday low of around $92 LTC surged through the psychological $100 barrier to top out at $107 an hour or so ago according to Tradingview. The move has added 14 percent to Litecoin prices over the past 24 hours.
Initially the momentum was driven by Bitcoin’s blast as Chinese buyers started loading up earlier this morning. A weakening local currency has driven them into offshore assets such as BTC as Trump’s trade war escalates. Often seen as silver to Bitcoin’s gold, Litecoin may also be viewed as a solid investment at less than 9 percent of the price of BTC.
Litecoin has now halved with the next one due in 2023, 1458 days away according to the block half counter. Around 75 percent of all Litecoins have already been mined with 63 million in circulation out of a total of 84 million. The halving has also decreased annual inflation to 4.26 percent which has the effect of potentially increasing value while appearing to decrease the supply.
Founder Charlie Lee has noted that blocks are being created much faster than the expected 2.5 minutes which is a good sign of network health.
“Since the halving, 12 blocks have been found in 17 minutes.
Seems like miners have not shut off their hashrate at all. Instead, we are mining at a rate of a block every 1.4 minutes on average, which is much faster than the expected 2.5 minutes.
Litecoin network is healthy!”
Since the halving, 12 blocks have been found in 17 minutes.
Seems like miners have not shut off their hashrate at all. Instead, we are mining at a rate of a block every 1.4 minutes on average, which is much faster than the expected 2.5 minutes.
Litecoin network is healthy! pic.twitter.com/xvgefqIPtP
— Charlie Lee Ⓜ️🕸️ (@SatoshiLite) August 5, 2019
LTC price is also pretty healthy, even after its 40 percent pullback. So far this year Litecoin has outperformed Bitcoin with an increase of 240 percent from around $30 on New Year’s Day to current prices just below $105. Today’s pump has enable LTC to flip BCH for fourth place with a market capitalization of $6.4 billion.
Altcoins Gaining Momentum
Litecoin is not the only crypto asset getting a boost this Monday. Ethereum has added around 7 percent on the day to reach $235 and XRP has made a rare 5 percent move to get to $0.33. Bitcoin Cash and EOS have both added over 5 percent and BSV is getting a 6 percent gain.
Further down the list, Monero, Dash, NEO, Ethereum Classic and NEM are all moving well gaining 6-7 percent on the day. Total crypto market cap is now at $310 billion following a $23 billion cash influx during the Asian trading session.
Image from Shutterstock
