When will Litecoin become as valuable as Bitcoin?
Dwain Litecoin in a Nutshell
Litecoin was launched in late 2011 as a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain. The idea behind Litecoin was to offer a more miner-friendly cryptocurrency - essentially one that the average user can mine without top-of-the-line hardware.
It was created by Charlie Lee, who used to work at Google and even spent some time at Coinbase. He saw some problems with Bitcoin at the time - namely its long transaction times and frequent network congestion issues - and wanted to solve them. With this, Lee created Litecoin and the Litecoin Foundation.
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Otherwise, Litecoin has faster transaction times than Bitcoin, though a value nowhere near it. That and that Litecoin is more resistant to ASICs - specialized graphics cards focusing on mining cryptocurrency. This is how the asset is more accessible to the average miner than Bitcoin.
There are also four times the number of Litecoin than Bitcoin with only 84,000,000 LTC ever going to exist. While this makes it inherently less scarce, this does ensure the world could have an easier time adopting Litecoin as a traditional asset.
The two cryptocurrencies don’t differ much from one another aside from this, at least in terms of technical prowess. Where the deviation occurs, however, is in price.
How has the Price of Litecoin Performed in the Past?
Litecoin remained below $100 for the first half of its lifespan. However, in late 2017, the price hit $70 and then jumped to almost $400 by year’s end in the overall bull run. Since then, the asset has fallen hard down to the $100 area, give or take, though it jumped up toward $160 mid-2019 before falling back down.
Since then, Litecoin has ranged from the mid $30’s all the way to the $80 it’s sitting near right now. It’s not a particularly fruitful investment when considering the year-over-year value, but Litecoin is performing relatively well compared to most other cryptocurrencies.
After all, Litecoin is the number 5 cryptocurrency in terms of market cap, totaling around $5.4 billion as of this writing.
What factors affect the price of Litecoin?
Like all cryptocurrencies, Litecoin is affected by various factors. The upgrades and price of Bitcoin are one such element.
For example, Litecoin used to correlate with Bitcoin’s price fairly closely, as most digital assets do. However, since Bitcoin integrated the SegWit upgrade and a few others that make it faster, Litecoin’s network begins to run out of unique offerings and starts to fall.
Conversely, the asset still has quicker transaction speeds than Bitcoin, making it quite useful for interested investors. As more of the mainstream world catches onto crypto, this speed and accessibility for miners could bring in an audience.
Also, there’s a limit of 85 million Litecoin that will be in circulation. This is much higher than Bitcoin’s 21 million and can increase the chances of it becoming a widespread currency. While this could mean Litecoin never reaches Bitcoin’s high value, it could mean the asset will be more stable in the future. 85 million Litecoin is a lot, and it’s absolutely reasonable for someone to own one or even more of these, pointing to a positive future for the asset.
After all, Litecoin is considered the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. Gold is much rarer than silver and sells for a higher price, but silver is used much more often as a transfer of value and has a lower price as a result. The same logic might also be emulated in the cryptocurrency space.
Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin also experiences a halving. This literally halves the rewards given to miners for successfully validating a block. Each time this happens, Litecoin becomes a little bit rarer, and the price is projected to increase as a result. It’s impossible to track exactly what price changes are due to the halving instead of other factors, but one can be sure it plays a role in any changes of value.
Finally, the Litecoin platform has recently seen the launch of LiteBringer, an RPG video game that runs on the network. Gaming is often seen as the ideal way to teach users about blockchain, as it’s a fun way to learn about the ins and outs. LiteBringer allows users to buy in-game items, which increases the transactions on the Litecoin network. This can make the blockchain more appealing to outsiders, bringing in more money and increasing its value.
Litecoin Price Prediction for 2021-2025
All of that said, what will Litecoin’s price be in a year? Three years? Even five? If you’re wondering whether or not Litecoin is a good investment, let’s take a look at some expert predictions.
LongForecast prediction
LongForecast, a group that uses mathematical and statistical indicators to predict investments’ long-term performance, has a relatively optimistic Litecoin prediction over the next couple of years.
First off, the platform claims Litecoin will end 2020 at around $121. From there, it will range from $140 all the way down to $91 in 2021, dropping significantly from the year’s start. However, while it will remain around the $ ’90s and even the $80’s for most of 2022, the platform predicts a steep drop to the $ ’40s and $ ’50s in 2023.
2024 pains a brighter picture, however, with the asset jumping back to around $100 in the latter half of the year.