2018 started off on a high note for cryptocurrencies but eventually saw a major slowdown throughout the months of January and the first half of February. However, since the past few days, the markets have been on a recovery mode - and one of the biggest gainers in this period is Litecoin. Litecoin, which bounced by about 35% in two days showed a massive growth. While the markets in general were in an uptrend, Litecoin’s growth was fuelled by two other factors as well - LitePay and Litecoin Cash.
Understanding LitePay:
Announced to be launched on the 26th of February, LitePay is being hailed as a ‘game-changer’ for Litecoin. The technology is all set to revolutionize the way we know Litecoin payments to be and will help increase adoption. LitePay is basically a payments processor, which the users from 41 nations will be able to make use of.
LitePay, which was first announced around Christmas of 2017, has been an intriguing technology. The company will issue official Litecoin Debit Cards powered by Visa - making it possible to make Litecoin payments on any outlet that accepts Visa-powered cards. This would be beneficial for the consumers as well as for the merchants. For the consumers, this finally gives a meaning to owning Litecoins - as they will now be able to make use of their cryptocurrencies to make regular purchases. For the merchants, LitePay will convert the Litecoin into dollars, helping them liquify it with ease.
The biggest problem with cryptocurrencies of late has been that they are looked upon more as a ‘store of value’ than as a ‘currency’. While Bitcoin has been the apex cryptocurrency with wide acceptability, other cryptocurrencies too need to break free of this and need to be recognized as a ‘currency’. With technologies such as LitePay, this becomes possible.
“Our goal is to create a way for merchants to earn Litecoin, which is a particularly good cryptocurrency for payments,” LitePay CEO Kenneth S. Asare told CNBC.
Understanding Litecoin Cash:
Another reason for the spike in Litecoin prices is the fact that Litecoin Cash is all set to emerge. This will be the first ever fork in the Litecoin Blockchain. Litecoin Cash claims to be faster, cheaper and easily mineable as compared to Litecoin. This hard fork of Litecoin offers a certification speed of 2.5 minutes as opposed to 10 minutes of Litecoin.
Following the fork, each Litecoin holder will be awarded with 10 Litecoin Cash tokens per Litecoin. However, while free tokens are always welcome, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee hasn’t really been optimistic about this, calling Litecoin Cash a ‘scam’ and asking the users to ‘be careful out there’ and advising them, ‘don’t fall for it’. Lee further commented, saying: "It confuses people into thinking litecoin is splitting. The litecoin community has no interest in splitting. It's just some people trying to make a quick buck. And calling it litecoin gives them some legitimacy."
To add to this, the details about the founders are obscure. Moreover, the rocess of claiming the 10 Litecoin Cash tokens per Litecoin is also quite complicated and involves setting up multiple wallets. For all practical purposes, Litecoin Cash has no real association with Litecoin. Litecoin Cash will ‘fork’ at block number 1371111. It uses the SHA-256 algorithm for mining instead of Litecoin’s Scrypt. However, many in the cryptocurrency markets claim that there actually exists no ‘real’ purpose of the creation of this currency and this has been created to just make some quick profit for the developers.
