Litecoin Surges to Become The Fourth Largest Cryptocurrency In The Market
Gone are the days when Bitcoin and Ethereum alone used to dominate the cryptocurrency markets single-handedly. In the recent past altcoins have shown a similar strength contributing significantly to the crypto markets. In addition to Bitcoin, another cryptocurrency that has emerged as the underdog is Litecoin.
In just past one week’s time, the price of cryptocurrency has surged by almost 200% with its market cap crossing $15 billion and making it the fourth-most-valued cryptocurrency surpassing other dominant altcoins like Ripple, Dash and others.
There is no doubt to the fact Bitcoin has emerged as the most popular cryptocurrency of 2017 with its valuations soaring by 1800% since the start of 2017. However, if stats are to be compared, Litecoin has emerged as the biggest underdog and data shows that this altcoin has in fact given more than three times the returns in comparison to Bitcoin since the start of 2017.
Litecoin started the year at a price of just above $4 and is compared with the existing price of $300, the appreciation in investor’s money stands to above 7000 percent in a single year. This is three times when compared to Bitcoin returns over the same period of time. The major surge in the price of Litecoin has happened just over the past 48 hours as it grows double in value to the existing price of $292 as per our data.
During the meteoric run of Litecoin, creator Charlie Lee appeared in an interview with CNBC sharing his thoughts about the cryptocurrency and the technology supporting it. Charlie said that there will be a limited number of cryptocurrencies existing in future and only those will survive which are supported by scalable technology and provide better services. Expressing his confidence, Charlie said that Litecoin will be one amongst those.
Moreover, Charlie also stated that as cryptocurrencies enter the mainstream market to be used for daily transactions, it can certainly replace fiat currencies like U.S Dollar. With Bitcoin, scalability is the major issue at the current point of time and huge investor participation has resulted into issues like network clogging resulting into low transaction speeds and higher transaction or conversion costs into other cryptocurrencies.
Many analysts believe that Litecoin has an upper-edge over Bitcoin in this matter and additionally, it offers more stability. Due to this reason, some analysts also call Litecoin as a “Bitcoin Hedge”.
There is absolutely no doubt to the fact that Litecoin has been showing its strength from time to time and going ahead it can confidently emerge as one of the dominant cryptocurrencies in the market.