Litecoin Price Forecast: LTC Price Retraces as Bitcoin Cash Lands on Coinbase
Litecoin News Update
Coinbase has just added what is touted to be a Litecoin competitor to its trading platform and Litecoin prices are tanking. At least that’s the weak justification people are giving out on the streets. But trust me, there’s little to worry about here.
In case you missed it, Bitcoin Cash (BCH)—a Bitcoin baby born after Bitcoin’s hard-fork earlier this year—has just become available for buying and selling on America’s biggest digital currency exchange, Coinbase.
Litecoin, on the contrary, has been trading on Coinbase since May this year. But that’s not the only lead it has over Bitcoin Cash.
Litecoin may have been slow at piquing public interest, since it does not have “Bitcoin” in its name, but it is certainly faster in all other aspects of its trade.
Let’s not forget that although both are promoted as Bitcoin alternatives, Litecoin is the more advanced digital currency and uses “SegWit” and “Lightning Network”—the two little upgrades to Bitcoin’s old blockchain technology that make Litecoin more scalable.
Simply put, Litecoin charges lower fees and processes transactions much faster than Bitcoin and its hard-forked clones.
Allow me to explain why this matters.
In medieval times, when banks were few and far between, merchants were charged substantial fees for moving their money across borders. In modern times, anything over two percent of the transaction seems exorbitant.
Oxymoronically, the modern crypto world is still stuck in primitive times. Imagine paying nearly half of your transaction in fees. It’s no hypothetical scenario. Just take a look at this recent tweet from a Bitcoin user.
Bitcoin’s transaction costs are currently at all-time highs and settlement times are extremely slow. Bitcoin Cash does little in the way of solving this scalability problem.
Enter Litecoin.
Touted as the “digital silver” to Bitcoin’s “digital gold,” this “light” coin is investors’ best bet at having a decentralized “medium of exchange” (read: money), which can see practical mass adoption.
All it misses is the right marketing strategy to reach out to the masses. And the Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee, is finally working on one.
More and more people are hearing about Litecoin just as this digital currency gets exposure on electronic media. However, Lee believes it may take another five years for the average Joes to begin using digital currencies for day-to-day payments. Nonetheless, Litecoin is headed in the right direction.
Traders’ momentary shift toward Bitcoin Cash is part of their speculative game. Real investors will stick with the digital currency that offers better utility in the long run. And between Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, it has to be the former.
Analyst Take:
Our Litecoin price forecast for 2018 remains unaffected by these short-lived hiccups in the LTC price. We’re staying the course at $400.00.
