We’re just days away from the official launch of LitePay, Litecoin’s special payment system that’s meant to ease crypto transfers and conversions to fiat currencies. It’s a brilliant way for businesses to start accepting Litecoin for payments, and the low transaction fees (that will get even lower), as well as the quickness of processing will definitely turn Charlie Lee’s invention into one of the most popular coins around.
If we were talking about Ripple or Ethereum, this kind of news would take the coins to the Moon and traders and investors would load up on coins waiting for the transaction numbers to spike and the demand to grow.
But why isn’t Litecoin getting the hype and love it deserves?
Beyond the debatable idea that investors want to hide such details for as long as they can in order so they can load up on LTCs (let’s call this the conspiracy theory), lie a couple of ugly truths.
First of all, the money-oriented investors have turned away their attention from Litecoin when the founder sold all of his coins back in December. It was a bold move, and one that created more decentralization in terms of the coin’s ownership (even in the case of Bitcoin, 1/24 of the coins are possessed by Satoshi) while also removing future situations where conflict of interest might have occurred. Mr. Lee is as committed as ever to develop his love project, and the fact that the Litecoin Foundation is constantly growing and has a better social media presence only means that the best is yet to come.
But there are plenty of haters and naysayers who distrust the concept of a creator or CEO who doesn’t have a financial stake in the company, and therefore has nothing to lose in the unfortunate case that the project fails. Holding a stake is a tradition that has been passed from the corporate environment, and some of the more finance-minded individuals will only have faith in the vision of someone who also has something to win or lose as the project evolves. But are such criteria relevant in a decentralized creation which aims to disrupt the financial and banking sector?
Another problem with Litecoin’s approach can be deduced from Charlie Lee’s own words from the show he co-founded, “Magical Crypto Friends”. In the second episode, he acknowledges that DASH and Ethereum spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on promotion and publicity, while Litecoin relies mostly on his tweeting activity. This is also bound to change as the Foundation grows and develops, and we can already see a better social media presence on Instagram and Twitter.
Does Litecoin have a future in this market?
To put it plain and simple: YES! It’s the second most decentralized coin of the big ones, it will soon test the Lightning Network (which promises to revitalize Bitcoin by solving its scaling issues), and has a very promising future with LitePay.
But we seem to live in an era when hype generates pumps and nobody’s there to present the virtues of decentralization anymore. Lots of day traders and “investors” look for the penny coin that can potentially grow a dozen times in a week, without caring about the industry at large or the technology behind it. They might give crypto trading a bad reputation, but they will keep on trying to be the Wolves of Crypto for as long as it’s profitable.
Nevertheless, if I had more money right now I would invest it in Litecoin. I think it’s the most undervalued and overlooked of the big ones, and it shows a lot of potential in terms of innovation and speed. They want to make it the beat coin for transactions and focus on daily transacted volumes, and I love their approach and would put more money in while the price is below the $200 mark.
What about you, do you believe in LitePay and the Litecoin project at large? And if you don’t, then what is your main criticism? (You know, you may help a brother open his eyes and pull out before it’s too late)