The price of Litecoin (LTC) has more than doubled within just a few months to reach nearly US$60. So what’s the reason for the sudden rally?
Exciting new developments
On February 7, a blog post from Beam Privacy announced that Litecoin’s development team officially contacted them in regards to a cooperation between projects. Beam has been well known for their use of the MimbleWimble protocol, which if implemented into Litecoin, would add a substantial layer of privacy to their existing “digital silver” model.
There’s no doubt that privacy is a hot topic right now, and this announcement sparked much excitement and speculation amongst investors, which is shown in the price.
As the relationship between Beam and Litecoin unfolds, keep an eye out for future news-related rallies such as this.
Adding to the excitement is the anticipation of a live “outlook” conversation between Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee and Derek Capo, CEO of TokenPay on March 11. Investors are looking forward to this conversation, as it will shed light on future scaling and adoption plans between the two projects.
Litecoin’s ‘Halving’ – Aug 7, 2019
To add even more enthusiasm to the mix, is Litecoin’s upcoming “halving” event on August 7, 2019. After the halving, mining rewards will drop from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC. This reduction in newly minted coins effectively restricts the rate of supply increase for Litecoin, often resulting in positive price pressure.
With the beginning of the new year comes investors’ ultimate realisation of this event happening. At just five months away, events like these have been highly anticipated throughout the cryptocurrency industry, and speculation is often seen to ramp up months in advance. We may see this hype snowball further as we draw closer to the date.
Venezuela’s official acceptance of Litecoin and Bitcoin
You’ve most likely heard about by now, that Venezuela has been experiencing one of the worst economic collapses and hyperinflation in history. With a near-worthless Bolivar, the government has been doing everything in its power to incentivise use of their fiat currency.
However, these incentives have repeatedly been proven ineffective. In an effort to curtail this catastrophe, the country’s financial regulators finally announced the release of a brand new cryptocurrency remittance program, in which only Litecoin and Bitcoin are accepted.
Their goal with this program is to help inject an influx of financial aid into the country, helping citizens in need. This newly opened door only serves to increase Litecoin’s demand, possibly adding fuel to the fire of its first quarter rally.
Looking ahead through the rest of this year, some say the future appears very bright for Litecoin. There is certainly no shortage of positive news surrounding its development and use.
Until now, Litecoin has led the upward charge in a down market. Will it continue to do so as we enter the next quarter of 2019?
Only time will tell.