What is going on with Litecoin?
This question originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answers below are by John S. Rhodes, Marean Vladimir, Evan Feenstra and Dmitri Gristsenko.
Answered December 13th, 2017
First, it’s important to remember that a huge number of people looking at Bitcoin see how much it is and that freaks them out, plain and simple. It “feels” like it got away and that drives both fear and greed. This is a psychological set up.
Second, when people look into Bitcoin the first time they think they have to buy a “full” Bitcoin. See my first point above about the price. Therefore, because one Bitcoin is a big number, there’s a real feeling of loss. There’s frustration, mostly due to ignorance, but it’s still there. One Bitcoin is expensive.
Third, there’s the psychological contrast effect. One Litecoin is only about 2% of the cost of just one Bitcoin. Flipping that around, you can buy about 50 Litecoin right now versus just one Bitcoin. Again, see my first two points above. The essential point here is that a key driver is psychology not economics, or awareness, or deeper understanding. Humans being humans.
Fourth, there are people who are starting to understand the real differences in the market. Here’s a solid overview of Litecoin vs. Bitcoin. In other words, there are real differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin, and the “second wave” of investors is catching up to the potential. It’s entirely possible that Litecoin is superior to Bitcoin over the longer term, from a technology point of view but much more.
Fifth, I’ve been saying for a long time that with Coinbase you get free marketing of Litecoin and Ethereum, but not much else. You can buy (and sell) BTC, ETH, and LTC, and that’s it. So, when things get wild and crazy with Bitcoin, it’s easy to look at Litecoin as a way to relieve the pressure. Furthermore, because so many people login 50x per day to check their Bitcoin prices, they also get repeated repeated exposure to Litecoin. So, if it goes hog wild and crazy, it just squeezes the greed gland even more. New money for Litecoin floods in, or people switch from Bitcoin to Litecoin.
There’s a lot more going on. However, my key point is that there is a lot of psychology and sociology at play here. There might be some big whales making moves. There might be more Litecoin exposure in the media. I could go on and on about this, but I think right now it’s best to think in terms of the human mind, and how fear and greed are playing with the markets. After all, people are markets, and markets are people, right? p.s. That Litecoin Versus Bitcoin article is extremely popular.
Answered December 11th, 2017
Well, Litecoin was undervalued for a long long time. While others were surging, Litecoin was barely moving. I bought it at 45$ waiting for it to moon, too bad I sold it at 150$, with a profit though.
Bitcoin had a lot of growth since June, and I presume with futures it will stabilize more and leave room for others to grow, like IOTA did, Litecoin is doing and I do hope that Ethereum and Ethereum tokens are next.
I focus and on Ethereum more, as I think it offers real-world solution to problems long term, But we shall see. I also use Ethereum to invest in token ICOs like Bankera, INS.
The last one was Caviar at their presale, because they build a crypto fund to invest in crypto and real estate, and if it works, hopefully I can stop doing bad trades like selling Litecoin at 150$. 🙂
Answered December 11th, 2017
Bitcoin network is grinding to a halt because of the demand, but Litecoin is not as popular, so it is running smoothly. Also it one of the three coins you can buy on Coinbase (the biggest USD volume in the US), so it a lot of people are buying it.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t bring any new technology to the table, it is basically a clone of Bitcoin, but with 4 times more coins. It wastes just as much electricity, and will hit the same scaling issues if it ever gets as popular as Bitcoin. For these reasons, I don’t think its a good long-term investment
Answered December 12th, 2017
Bitcoin speculation became too hot for some investors, so they moved on to the “cooler” Litecoin which had also seen some media attention lately(that combined with the spread promises/myths of 1 LTC reaching 1/4 value of BTC, which seems like a VERY attractive promise at the moment)
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