The start of this year has been nothing short of epic for cryptocurrencies with the majority of them surging for the first couple of days of January. One favorite from last year however remained asleep and even fell a little while the rest were on fire. Litecoin has finally awoken during the Asian trading session this morning and is once again heading upwards.
Like many of its siblings LTC had a great year in 2017 starting off around $4 and climbing steadily over tenfold to reach some stability around $50 where it remained for several months. In November it moved up again towards the $100 level where again it halted for a while. Between December 8 and 13 Litecoin went parabolic and jumped to $340, it reached a record high of $375 a few days later.
Since those heady days the altcoin has fallen from grace somewhat on a downward trend for three weeks to lows of just over $220. News that founder Charlie Lee had sold his entire holdings of LTC left the community with a sour taste. Hodlers were starting to get concerned as all of the other altcoins were making upward motions and Litecoin was getting left behind.
Things started to change this morning during the Asian trading session when LTC broke through its weekly resistance level of $255 and shot skywards in a couple of hours to just over $300. Litecoin has finally awoken from its slumber to break $300 again for the first time since December 22. The majority of trading has been on Hong Kong exchange OKEx in Bitcoin Cash, followed by GDAX and South Korean Bithumb.
Charlie Lee is still extolling his baby and Tweeted this today in reference to transfer volume;
“Over $12B worth of LTC has been sent in the last 24hr. That’s almost 95% of its marketcap. See how this stacks up against the other coins. Litecoin IS the payments coin!”
News that Japanese entertainment giant DMM unveiled details of a crypto exchange that will be launched next month could have boosted investment in Litecoin as it will be carrying 7 currencies of which LTC is one.
Litecoin is currently up 21% on the day, its market capacity is $16 billion and it has lost a couple of spots in the cap charts to Cardano and the recently surging Ripple. It the momentum continues Litecoin could reach its previous high and even continue on to $400 where it is likely to climb back up those charts.