To the untrained eye, it would look like Bitcoin is the real king of the cryptocurrencies, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Bitcoin is the big daddy when it comes to the decentralised currency network, but there are a handful or plucky young upstarts who are vying for position at the top.
None of these currencies can be classed as new, but they’re certainly hitting their stride over the past year.
If you don’t believe me when I say there are some other cryptocurrencies worth investing in, then take a look at the number of people scrambling to buy Litecoin with Bitcoin.
Coin GeckoAt the time of writing, it seems around 30 per cent of those who are buying Litecoin, are doing so with their Bitcoin, according to Coingecko.
In case you were wondering just how much Litecoin has been traded so far in the last 24 hours, it’s a tidy little $1.7 billion.
People are snapping up the currency like hot cakes, but it still isn’t stabilising and has actually decreased in value since its astronomic rise.
According to coingecko, their description of Litecoin is as follows:
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee. It was created based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used. Litecoin uses the memory intensive Scrypt proof of work mining algorithm. Scrypt allows consumer-grade hardware such as GPU to mine those coins.
The transaction confirmation time taken for Litecoin is about 2.5 minutes on average (as compared to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes). The Litecoin network is scheduled to cap at 84 million currency units.
Litecoin has inspired many other popular alternative currencies (eg. Dogecoin) because of its Scrypt hashing algorithm in order to prevent ASIC miners from mining those coins. However it’s said, by the end of this year, Scrypt ASIC will enter the mass market.
PixabayJust last Thursday, Litecoin jumped from $90-$100, then $120-$130, which works out at 38 per cent in a mere 9 hours and since then, prices have been soaring even higher – this morning Litecoin prices peaked at $186.87, marking the 29 per cent hike.
There are numerous reasons for this, including the launch of Bitcoin futures on the CBOE, which has caused a spike in Bitcoin prices.
This is of note, as Bitcoin prices tend to influence other cryptocurrency trades, especially those of Litecoin.
PixabayAs a bottleneck effect is beginning to slow growth in Bitcoin, Litecoin could well be proving to be an appealing alternative for faster speeds and lower transaction overheads.
It’s also worth noting, Coinbase, the cryptocurrency brokerage, has become the number one app on the Apple App Store, overtaking YouTube.
So it seems Litecoin is definitely the one to be watching for the future, just look at how the experts are behaving.
