Hello steemit community. This is my first story on Steemit. I have been a crypto currency aficionado since Bitcoin first came out in 2009, buying my first Bitcoins to purchase VPN access from Air Vpn. I have been actively trading crypto currencies since then and most recently I have been very active in getting involved in the crypto community. I am writing this article in regard to my prediction that Litecoin will hit triple digits soon based on the following reasoning:
- Charlie Lee the founder of Litecoin just quit coinbase to devote all his time to development of litecoin. Up until last month, Charlie Lee did not spend a lot of time and effort developing litecoin, which was an early clone of the Bitcoin blockchain. Charlie Lee was waiting for the opportunity to further develop Litecoin when it would have the most impact. That time is now because Bitcoin is suffering from scaling issues, long transaction time, expensive transaction fees and overall sluggish performance compared to when it was less popular. The market cap for all crypto currencies has doubled since the beginning of 2017 and that surge in demand has overwhelmed the existing exchanges like Poloniex, which is one of the biggest, with so much daily volume that it often lags and crashes at critical times. This phenomenon is also happening to other exchanges and platforms like Coinbase, Kraken etc.
- Litecoin is compared to Bitcoin as silver is to gold. Litecoin is cheaper than Bitcoin and therefore attracts investors who can purchase a lot more Litecoin than Bitcoin to speculate on price increases. Litecoin is much faster in terms of transaction times and since they have successfully executed the seg wit protocol, which is one of the possible solutions to Bitcoin's scaling problem, it is a trailblazer in this regard. Furthermore, Litecoin will be able to trade on the lightning network which means even faster processing times for transactions. What all this adds up to is people will be able to utilize the inexpensive, fast transaction times of Litecoin for ordinary every day transactions like buying a cup of coffee to paying for gas, tolls etc when the infrastructure develops to accept crypto currencies. That infrastructure is developing every day as countries like Japan enact regulations that help their citizens adopt crypto currencies. Japan recently announced that there are 260000 merchants coming online accepting Bitcoin. Most merchants will likely also be accepting litecoin as well.
- Litecoin recently (since March 27, 2017) started a massive rally upwards towards its all time high price, and is currently trading around $50. Prior to that it was trading under $5 for a long time. That 1000% increase in price is just the beginning for Litecoin. As Charlie Lee continues to work on the development of Litecoin and new announcements come out we can expect to see further surges in the price of Litecoin. Ethereum's rise followed a similar pattern, climbing up to $10 and then $40 and within a few weeks of that it was at nearly $400. Litecoin could very well follow a similar path, although it seems to be moving along at a much steadier and gradual pace. There is great interest in Litecoin in China especially. As with all crypto currencies, Litecoin will see a lot of volatility in its price over the course of the next few weeks and months, but the general trend is upwards.
- Litecoin is undervalued even at $50. The future prospects for Litecoin are very positive. With substantial industry support, trade volume, and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin. Litecoin is the second most popular cryptocurrency. There are currently 51,853,482 Litecoin in circulation with a max supply capped at 84,000,000 and a total market cap of $2,623,578, 794 as of this writing according to coinmarketcap.com. 24 Hour volume was $899,159,000 or 350,773 bitcoin. Since May 4, 2017 Litecoin's market cap has doubled. It is foreseeable that if that trend continues by September 4, 2017 or sooner I would expect Litecoin's market cap to double again, which would put it in the triple digit range of around $100.
- Widespread adoption of litecoin is happening now. Cheapair allows you to book flights around the globe with litecoin. You can buy electronics from BTCZone, BitRoad and Bitcoinshop.US using litecoin. There are thousands of websites with articles and discussions of litecoin like litecointalk, etc. This all creates a great deal of momentum working in Litecoin's favor. The Korean and Chinese markets are driving litecoin demand at the moment. OKCoin.cn is clearly dominating at the moment, Huobo and Bithumb are not far behind in volume. All these reasons support my proposition that litecoin will continue on its upward price trajectory as it is firing on all cylinders right now. Charlie Lee recently stated that he "expects people will be able to send real value over the Lightning Network on Litecoin. This will motivate developers to build out the Lightning infrastructure and wallets, so by the time SegWit is activated on Bitcoin, Lightning Network will be ready for mainstream adoption!"
Conclusion: Based on all the above facts, it is clear that Litecoin has a very promising future ahead of it. It will inevitably hit triple digits, the only question is how soon. If the popularity of Litecoin continues on its current trend, it could be in triple digits within a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months. Overall, the trend will be upwards and onwards as the new digital economy is revolutionizing the way people trade goods and services for crypto currencies. There will be a great deal of disruption of established business models that rely on middlemen in the centralized "legacy economy" as I am calling it now. This revolution will not be televised, but it will happen nonetheless as the potential of blockchain technology finally comes to fruition, and Litecoin will be one of the major players in this new world order that is decentralized, and not controlled by any corporation or government.