Litecoin (LTC) has begun the month with a rally, rising 7% over the last 24-hours, with bulls noting the network’s halving in two months and a significant uptick in activity in May.
It continues a period of overperformance for litecoin, which is up 7.5% over the last 30 days, the third-best result among crypto assets over that period, and topping bitcoin, which is down 6.2% and ether, which has edged lower by 0.5%
Litecoin’s network activity has been picking up all year and more intensely since the beginning of April. Data from IntoTheBlock shows that the total of addresses holding a balance has now pushed to nearly 8.5 million.
IntoTheBlock
Litecoin is also approaching a halving in August which analysts are deeming a significant event for both the network and the price of LTC. Similar to the oft-noted bitcoin halving, the litecoin halving will see its block reward (paid in LTC) slashed by half.
Litecoin is a lot cheaper in terms of units compared to bitcoin, which attracts investors looking to position themselves ahead of the halving, according to Charles Storry, head of growth at Phuture, a crypto index platform. “From investors I’m speaking with, they anticipate the halving to push the price of BTC, LTC and the market,” said Storry.
Litecoin might also be benefitting from the congestion that the Bitcoin network has been witnessing due to the recent burst of activity related to the Ordinals protocol, and leading to soaring costs for users.
“Because of Ordinals and BRC20 tokens taking up large shares of transaction volume on Bitcoin of late, fees have increased as well as the time to process transactions on the network,” said Brent Xu, chief executive officer and co-founder of Umee.
“Litecoin, in a sense, is an old-school clone of BTC and in turn serves a similar purpose,” added Xu. “And this is why you’re probably seeing more people transact in LTC at the moment – it’s serving as an outlet of sorts during a time of BTC congestion,” he said, though cautioning that this has happened before and LTC’s outperformance may thus not be sustainable for the long term.
Nauman Sheikh, Head of Protocol and Treasury Management at Wave Digital Assets, agreed that the halving is influencing the current price performance, noting a 30% rise in open interest for litecoin futures and perpetual contracts during the last week of May.
