Litecoin continues to fall from a recent high of nearly $39 to now trade at around $27 as attention and focus seems to have moved elsewhere since it activated segwit around four days ago.
Price instantly dropped after segwit activation, quickly falling by $10, after it experienced a nearly similar rise of around $15 mainly in anticipation of the much expected segregated witnesses (segwit).
Now that segwit is activated, the currency doesn’t seem to have much to talk about. So attention appears to have moved elsewhere, sending the price lower with activity on litecoin’s public spaces reduced.
The reason may be because segwit doesn’t really have any significant effect for litecoin as it enjoys plenty of capacity which no one seems to want. So, once segwit activated, nothing really happened as far as end-users are concerned.
The litecoin holders, however, might keep holding for the Lightning Network, a second layer protocol on top of litecoin that is intended to increase capacity to tens of thousands of transactions.
There are reports of tests payments, but through a command line interface which most litecoiners can’t really use. Actual user friendly wallets may take some time, and maybe, once launched, might perhaps hype litecoin once more.
However, that will probably quickly die out too because litecoin’s problem isn’t capacity. Litecoin’s problem is the fact that no one wants to use it and no one wants to use it because it’s a bitcoin copycat.
Litecoin offers nothing really that bitcoin doesn’t. Sure, it might have slightly faster confirmation times, but they appear to be following the full blocks settlement layer path so those confirmation times don’t matter.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is mainstream now, re-enforced recently after it was splashed in front page papers and prime news-shows across the world on top of allegations that Trump’s Press Secretary and an aid to the President-elect Macron used bitcoins.
So, litecoin can’t really directly compete with that sort of network effect by just offering nothing, something supported by the fact that it barely handles 4,000 transactions, making segwit and LN on litecoin kind of irrelevant.
But, I suppose it gave us journalists something to talk about so it made for a good side-show while it lasted, although, who knows, the currency might take over bitcoin as some litecoiners were claiming at the peak hype.