As Bitcoin Scales With Lightning Network, What Role Does Litecoin Have to Play?

The market has seen a wave of capitulation amongst lots of the cash that have been put ahead as quicker, decrease price, or greater throughput alternate options to Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin nonetheless has market share, however Litecoin is the second most transacted digital forex for funds.”
Litecoin nonetheless operates as a sort of helpful testnet for Bitcoin.

On the time of writing, Litecoin (LTC) is the twentieth largest cryptoasset by market capitalization. Again in 2013, it used to be the second-biggest, however the next 9 years have seen 1000’s of latest altcoins seem on the scene, with many of those making its modest replace on Bitcoin (BTC) appear less-than fascinating by comparability.

Nonetheless, even with the delivery of 1000’s of latest cash, Litecoin stays a major altcoin, with a market capitalization of round USD 3.3 bn. However as the continued ‘crypto winter’ seems to herald a brand new part within the historical past of cryptocurrency, a minimum of some commentators are beginning to query whether or not the ecosystem actually ‘wants’ Litecoin.

Opinions on this query are unsurprisingly blended, with Bitcoin builders and supporters arguing that Litecoin is kind of out of date now that the unique cryptocurrency has realized scale (i.e. by way of the Lightning Network). Then again, the Litecoin neighborhood maintains that the altcoin serves as a helpful testbed for scaling applied sciences, and that its rising adoption by fee and funding platforms ought to assure its survival for years to come back.

Is Litecoin redundant?

When it was first launched as a supply code fork of Bitcoin in 2011, Litecoin distinguished itself by advantage of its quicker block time (along with the next provide cap and the usage of a unique hashing algorithm). Whereas Bitcoin processed a block each ten minutes on common, Litecoin managed the identical feat inside 2.5 minutes.

In different phrases, one in every of its main boasts was that it was extra scalable than Bitcoin. Nonetheless, many individuals inside the Bitcoin neighborhood argue this boast now not actually applies, given the advances the unique cryptocurrency has made in recent times.

“Litecoin and others billed themselves as scaling alternate options or enhances to Bitcoin, at a time that Bitcoin’s block house was seen because the limiting issue on its progress. Whereas others have been spinning up new chains, Bitcoiners pursued the Lightning Community and different scaling options such because the Liquid sidechain and Statechains,” stated Ben “Empact” Woosley, a Bitcoin Core developer.

He argues that, with the sustained success of the Lightning Community, the market has seen a wave of capitulation amongst lots of the cash that have been put ahead as quicker, decrease price, or greater throughput alternate options to Bitcoin. As an example, Litecoin is 88% down from the all-time excessive of USD 410 it set in Might 2021, whereas bitcoin is ‘solely’ 69% down from its November all-time excessive of round USD 69,000.

In truth, Woosley says he expects this capitulation of altcoins to proceed within the coming years, with layer-one (the bottom protocol) and layer-two (the Lightning Community) Bitcoin improvement steadily undermining the case for numerous altcoins.

“The way forward for Bitcoin is to observe this identical course of with different competing chains, by obviating their existence by enabling the options that draw individuals to them, by way of the applied sciences comparable to Lightning Labs’ Taro, Federated Chaumian mints, and TBD’s Web5,” he instructed Cryptonews.com.

One other promoting level for Litecoin, a minimum of in its earlier years, was that it was ‘silver to Bitcoin’s gold.’ What this meant was that, with a bigger provide cap of 84 million (versus 21 million), it could be a scarce commodity, however not fairly as scarce as bitcoin.

Even this line of reasoning holds little water for a lot of observers, with cryptocurrency creator Stephen Chow tweeting in Might of this yr that it was “useless to me in 2017.” The reason being that, with Bitcoin already being a scarce and simply transferable supply of worth, there was no need for Litecoin.

Nonetheless, many inside the Litecoin camp would argue that its decrease charges and higher scalability have enabled it to carve a spot for itself as a medium of trade.

“[The silver and gold analogy] makes quite a lot of sense whenever you take a look at probably the most used cash for funds. Bitcoin nonetheless has market share, however Litecoin is the second most transacted digital forex for funds,” stated Litecoin Basis Director Jay Milla.

Litecoin’s transactions per day, common numbers are noticeably decrease in contrast with Bitcoin’s.

7-day shifting common. Supply: Bitinfocharts.com

Litecoin witnessed simply over 100,000 transactions on June 15, whereas Bitcoin processed 296,000. Extra usually, it has usually had over 100,000 transactions per day since early 2021, with different comparable altcoins — e.g. Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Dash (DASH) — seeing round 80,000, 30,000, and 20,000 per day, respectively.

Litecoin nonetheless has makes use of

So whereas Bitcoin builders and holders might argue that Litecoin isn’t actually wanted, the latter continues to be doing higher than many comparable cryptocurrencies. And lots of inside its neighborhood argue that, no matter its scale of utilization, Litecoin nonetheless operates as a sort of helpful testnet for Bitcoin.

“Growth on a really decentralized forex will be gradual. The Litecoin ecosystem is fortunate because it nonetheless has its creator concerned. Charlie Lee and the Litecoin dev group have made quite a lot of wanted improvements to Litecoin which have already been adopted by Bitcoin,” stated Jay Milla.

Milla refers to Litecoin’s deployment of SegWit in 2017 as a chief instance of the altcoin’s worth to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.

“This allowed transaction signatures to be recorded exterior the block, which in flip was a necessity for Lightning,” he added, earlier than stating Litecoin was also early in actually using the Lightning Network.

Even not too long ago, Litecoin continues to function a testnet for promising new cryptocurrency applied sciences and options. This contains the arrival of MWEB (Mimblewimble Extension Blocks), which for Milla makes Litecoin “probably the most extensively accessible cryptocurrency” with improved fungibility and confidentiality options.

“It’s now the simplest cryptocurrency to acquire for one merely not desirous to broadcast to the world how a lot cash they’re sending. Better of all, it is optionally available: exchanges and wallets can select to implement it or not,” he instructed Cryptonews.com.

It’s for such causes that Milla and the Litecoin Basis are assured that the altcoin has a vibrant future forward of it. Its prospects are additionally helped by the rising integration of Litecoin into numerous platforms and portals.

“With the addition of main fee techniques like PayPal and Venmo, to the buying and selling firms like Interactive Brokers and Robinhood, entry to Litecoin for brand new customers has been rising. LTC transactions have seen a staggering 352% improve in exercise from 2019 by way of 2021, whereas Bitcoin has seen negative growth,” Milla stated.

Nonetheless, per BitInfoCharts knowledge, this yr, BTC carried out considerably higher.