Litecoin’s price today
Litecoin is one of the old guard as far as the crypto space is concerned, having launched all the way back in October 2011. It’s still going strong however, evidenced by the fact that it is still surviving where many other coins have come and gone.
We’ll start this piece by looking at what the Litecoin price is today:
CHARTS
It’s important to remember that not everywhere has accurate data when it comes to live Litecoin prices. We pull our data from a reputable provider which canvasses several top exchanges every few seconds, meaning that the data is about as accurate as it can be.
This isn’t the case for some less reputable sites who rely on just a couple of exchanges with low volume, where prices can jump independent of the wider market.
What affects the price of Litecoin?
Several elements can influence the Litecoin price. Some are internal, like its functionality and tokenomics, while others are external. We will examine these factors individually.
Internal factors
Usage
Litecoin was designed to be a version of Bitcoin that was more suitable as an everyday currency, with faster and cheaper transactions. While it was often used in its early days when there wasn’t much competition, plenty of newer and faster cryptocurrencies have come to the market since then, leaving Litecoin looking like something of a dinosaur.
However, Litecoin has undergone a kind of resurgence of late, with its totally decentralized proof-of-work consensus mechanism being attractive to those who crave a combination of financial freedom and relative privacy.
Supply
Litecoin has a low supply compared to other newer cryptocurrencies, with a maximum supply of 84 million. Some 85% of these have already been mined, which is hardly a surprise considering how long it has been around. The last Litecoin block is scheduled to be mined in 2412, just two years after Bitcoin’s final block.
This low supply helps keep the price up compared to coins whose supplies are in the billions.
Proof-of-work
The proof-of-work consensus algorithm used by Litecoin is universally recognized as the most secure way of securing a decentralized network. Only a small number of coins use this method of network security, and as the space becomes more centralized in the rush for speed and adoption, the LTC price may benefit from still using proof-of-work to keep it both decentralized and secure.
External factors
Demand
Litecoin may have been in demand when it first came on the scene for online payments, but time has moved on since then. In fact, very few cryptocurrencies have emerged in recent years purely as payment coins, suggesting that the need for a pure payment coin is no longer there.
Unless Litecoin can find a niche where its main USPs are of use, it may find itself further marginalized and the Litecoin price could fall as a result.
Speculation
Litecoin has seen plenty of crypto booms and busts and has taken part in all of them – its price has ranged from $0.30 when it first launched to $385 in May 2021. These booms are driven by speculation as buyers pick up coins in a bull market with the intention of selling for a profit later on, and the LTC price has been impacted by several of these speculative waves in the past.
All the evidence is that it will continue to be for as long as it is around.
Real world events
Real world events can directly impact the LTC price, and have done so over time. For example, the Litecoin price jumped 87% when it listed on Coinbase in May 2017 and 30% when Reutuers published what turned out to be fake news about a Walmart partnership in 2021.
This latter example also shows how mainstream media news can be manipulated to affect the LTC price.
Can you trust Litecoin ‘experts’?
The concept of a cryptocurrency “expert” is not universally accepted, especially when it comes to price predictions. While some in the space may have a good understanding of how Litecoin works, predictions about its price are often based on one’s perception of Litecoin’s potential.
Luckily Litecoin isn’t a particularly contentious coin, but it’s still important to be cautious of extreme views on the Litecoin price. If you see someone predicting the moon or death for Litecoin, research their background and previous activities before considering whether their predictions on the LTC price can be trusted.
While crypto influencers are often paid to promote projects (not all of whom declare such sponsorships), Litecoin doesn’t tend to be the subject of such activities any more. Nevertheless, it pays to be wary when prominent voices are overly bullish on the long term prospects of any coin, including Litecoin, as they may have been offered inducements to talk it up.
How does the future look for the Litecoin price?
No one knows for sure what the LTC price will be in the long or short term, but there are certain factors that will dictate this. We’ll look at these now.
Short term factors
Bear market
The crypto space is currently going through a bear market, so the prices of all assets, including the LTC price, have dropped significantly – Litecoin itself has dropped 86% from its 2021 highs, and the worst may not be over.
Until the market turns round and people are taking on more risk we can’t expect the LTC to make any serious gains, other than as part of bear market rallies.
Halving
Like Bitcoin, Litecoin has a halving every four years or so. The next halving is in August 2023, at which point the supply of new LTC will be cut by 50% for every block mined. This event is typically seen as bullish for the Litecoin price, so we could see a price rise around this important event.
Potential recession
Many countries around the world are at risk of going into a recession, or worse, which means much less money going into risky assets like cryptocurrencies. There is hope that 2023 could be the year that the financial pressure on many begins to ease a little, which would see cryptocurrency buyers getting back into the market again.
Long term factors
Litecoin’s history
Litecoin has experienced all the ups and downs of the crypto space since its launch more than a decade ago, and it has shown tremendous staying power to still be around. This underlines its strength and the size of support it still retains, while it still has a cabal of very active developers.
All in all, there is little chance of Litecoin being killed off in even the harshest crypto winter.
Privacy coin crackdown
In June 2022, Litecoin implemented a privacy feature called Mimblewimble. This added a layer of privacy to some Litecoin transactions, privacy that has seen it fall foul of a crackdown on such coins. In the aftermath of its implementation, several Korean exchanges delisted Litecoin because it violated new privacy coin laws, while exchange giant Binance announced that all Litecoin transactions using Mimblewimble would not be accepted.
Should such actions continue, which is more likely than not given regulations being discussed the world over, the LTC price could suffer as a result.
Proof-of-work regulations
The proof-of-work consensus mechanism used by Litecoin could potentially cause problems down the road in terms of regulations. Proof-of-work has a high environmental impact, and European lawmakers recently proposed to ban coins that used it.
The proposal was ultimately rejected, but it’s possible that the topic will be brought up again in the future, and not just in the EU.