Litecoin Price: Litepay, Litecoin Cash Pushes Cryptocurrency Above $200
The popularly cryptocurrency Litecoin experienced a significant bump in value Wednesday, soaring by more than 30 percent and breaking past the $200 mark for the first time since January.
The sudden spike in value appears to be driven by newfound excitement surrounding the cryptocurrency, including a new payment system called LitePay and the possibility of an upcoming fork called Litecoin Cash.
Why Is Litecoin Rising?
The excitement surrounding LitePay stems from the promise of turning Litecoin into a widely accepted currency—something that no cryptocurrency including Bitcoin has been able to successfully execute.
LitePay would allow businesses to accept Litecoin as a payment option and would give users the ability to spend the cryptocurrency like they would with standard U.S. dollars. According to the creators of LitePay, the system would make Litecoin accepted “anywhere debit cards are accepted.” It also promises to allow users to withdraw cash from LitePay compatible ATMs.
Details on LitePay still remain sparse—the company’s website is short on gritty details—but the potential payment system, first announced back in December 2017, has once again sparked interest in Litecoin investors with the recent announcement that the service will launch later this month.
“We started because the people asked Bitpay to accept [Litecoin]. They wouldn’t, so we took the challenge. Infrastructure for LTC February 26,” LitePay announced on Twitter earlier this week.
In addition to LitePay’s impending launch, some investors have also taken notice of a potential fork of Litecoin called Litecoin Cash. The split from Litecoin’s existing blockchain could provide investors significant returns, though some are warning to approach the fork with caution.
A fork occurs when a blockchain—the distributed ledger that keeps track of all transactions of a cryptocurrency—diverges. This split can happen with regard to a network’s transaction history or it can happen when a new rule is made in deciding what constitutes a valid transaction.
The Litecoin Cash fork, which is set to take place on February 18, claims to provide new and improved encryption across the blockchain. According to the fork creators, the encryption will enable “a new use for previously obsolete Bitcoin mining hardware,” and will improve network resiliency.
Litecoin Cash is also promising Litecoin investors a major incentive: for everyone one Litecoin they hold when the fork takes place, they will receive 10 Litecoin Cash tokens.
While the potential of Litecoin Cash may be helping to drive up the price of Litecoin, promises made by the fork creators, along with a general level of skepticism surrounding cryptocurrency, has some questioning the legitimacy of the fork.
Litecoin founder Charlie Lee has dismissed Litecoin Cash, calling it a scam. “Any fork of Litecoin, calling itself Litecoin something or other, is a scam IMO. Litecoin Cash, Litecoin Plus, Litecoin *... all scams trying to confuse users into thinking they are Litecoin,” Lee said on Twitter.
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