An article published on Forbes has made a strong case for Litecoin (LTC), sitting at the fourth largest market capital position, flipping third-ranked XRP by the end of the year.
Despite coin prices across the market still being down 80 percent or more since their last all time high, constituting a “crypto winter,” Litecoin has nearly doubled its value since the start of the year. The coin is trading at $57, as of writing, up from its most recent low in December 2018 of $23 per coin. Along with Binance Coin (BNB), LTC has been a top gainer since the start of 2019.
Bambrough, in his piece published on Forbes, believes that LTC price is responding to strong efforts by the Litecoin Foundation and developers to improve security and privacy for the coin, in addition to culling several high-profile partnerships.
“Litecoin volatility spiked when the Litecoin Foundation announced it’s exploring the integration of Mimblewimble, a protocol offering privacy and fungibility to blockchains,” a report by cryptocurrency brokerage SFOX read this week.
“In March, keep an eye on how privacy news moments impact markets, such as recent revelations over Coinbase’s third-party service provider selling client data.”
Bambrough also highlights LTC’s halving set to occur in August of this year, which will reduce the block reward for miners and thereby increase the scarcity of the coin. Halvings typically produce a bump in coin valuation, given the sudden change in supply, but it will be interesting to see the effects of such a shift if the market is still stuck in the “crypto winter” of the past year.
As for XRP, Bambrough cites a number of negative press events for the coin and associated company Ripple. While the company has been at the heart of several stories of large-scale adoption by financial institution, Bambrough believes that the announcement by J.P. Morgan to create the JPM Coin has soured investor interest in Ripple and XRP.
As reported by EWN, Binance Research has refuted the idea that JPM Coin will compete directly with Ripple or XRP, despite the knee-jerk reaction to believe otherwise. However, Bambrough claims the shifting landscape of cryptocurrency, with positive sentiment currently weighing towards LTC, could be enough for Litecoin to flip XRP by the end of the year. As of writing, LTC has a market capitalization of $3.5 billion compared to XRP’s $13 billion, representing a substantial gap to be overcome.
Still, Bambrough finds reason to be bullish on LTC and its increased real-world use and adoption, quoting a note to clients by eToro’s senior market analyst Mati Greenspan published earlier in the week,
“The number one real-world usage of litecoin it seems is as a settlement method for crypto-traders. For people who often send money from exchange to exchange to private wallets, it’s much cheaper and faster to do this with litecoin than it is with bitcoin.
This is why it indeed deserves the title ‘digital silver’ and with the upcoming halving event in early August, which is likely why it’s been outperforming the rest of the crypto markets lately.”
The crypto markets have experienced on small boost on the day as Bitcoin edges closer to $4000, with both XRP and Litecoin appreciating slightly.
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