Litecoin Rallies Over 50% Ahead of Litepay Announcement, Fork Rumors

Payment-focused cryptocurrency, Litecoin (one of the strongest competitors to Bitcoin), has experienced strong growth this week. Rallying over 50%, Litecoin is running with a cryptocurrency market resurgence that has seen the market rebound over 70% since February 6th.

The unexpected price surge accompanies rumors of an unexpected and controversial Litecoin fork that many have labelled as a scam. The future of Litecoin appears bright, but what’s driving its recent push into the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap?

Litecoin’s Fibonnaci Retracement

Recent Litecoin chart data shows a strong upward trend, with LTC value increasing 54% over the course of the week from the announcement. LTC has also pushed through the 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the Q4 2017 rally in which it jumped to an all-time high of $371.

Litecoin hit a high of $357 on December 17th and is currently trading at $229.

Litecoin Breaks Out Ahead of New Payment Infrastructure Implementation

The sharp recovery of the cryptocurrency market is associated with recent oversold conditions and other chart factors in the United States as well as cautiously optimistic governmental attitudes toward regulation.

Litecoin’s recent breakout, however, appears to be linked to a Twitter announcement heralding the launch of Litecoin’s Litepay infrastructure.

Litecoin’s Litepay system, announced at the end of 2017, promises to dramatically boost widespread consumer adoption by allowing businesses and individuals to use the cryptocurrency as a highly convenient instant payment system:

Litepay appears to make it easy to load fiat currency into a Litecoin wallet.

Litepay is described as a platform that allows users to:

“Accept payments from customers anywhere on earth.” Receive settlement from Litecoin payments directly to your bank account in your own currency, with zero price volatility or risk.”

Litepay also plans to roll out an official Litecoin Visa debit card, which should alleviate some of the turbulence present in the cryptocurrency card ecosystem.

Upcoming Litecoin Fork Labelled a Scam

Litecoin’s recent surge can also be attributed to the confusion surrounding rumors of a potential hard fork, drawing attention from investors interested in the opportunity of fork capitalization. Targeting a February 18th launch, the “Litecoin Cash” fork is promising 10 Litecoin Cash tokens for each Litecoin when it splits from the Litecoin chain at block 1,371,111.

Litecoin Cash, or LCC, plans to switch from Litecoins Scrypt algorithm to Bitcoin’s SHA-256, and states on its website that it is not claiming to be affiliated with Litecoin in any way:

“We’re using the Litecoin Cash name simply because it has become customary in recent months for a coin which forks a blockchain to prefix its name with the name of the coin being forked. This practice has become a widely understood convention. We’re not associated or affiliated with Charlie Lee or any of the Litecoin team in any way; we are big fans though.”

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, has been quick to crush any rumors of LTC participation in the fork, stating on Twitter that the fork is a “scam” that is attempting to confuse investors into thinking that it is associated with Litecoin:

https://cryptoslate.com/litecoin-rallies-50-ahead-litepay-announcement-fork-rumors/