CoolWallet and Litecoin Foundation will celebrate our 5-year partnership anniversary in October 2023. Learn more about Litecoin’s latest milestones, its prospects for 2024, and why CoolWallet Pro is the ultimate hardware wallet to HODL your LTC for the long run!
Written by Werner Vermaak
Introduction
It’s been a bumper 2023 for both Litecoin and the Litecoin Foundation, with several developments boosting its adoption throughout the crypto sector. The Litecoin Foundation is a long-time trusted partner of CoolWallet, and we have a shared history that goes back to September 2018.
To celebrate this 5-year anniversary, let’s take a look at the state of Litecoin in 2023, the 5 biggest Litecoin events this year to date (including the recent Litecoin Halving), and LTC’s potential bull case for 2024 and 2025.
Please note: None of the information in this article is financial advice. All content is for educational and entertainment purposes, and readers should do their own research.
A Short History of CoolWallet and Litecoin
The launch of our groundbreaking CoolWallet S hardware wallet during that period received high praise from Litecoin founder Charlie Lee, who also invested in our initial seed rounds. Our latest flagship hardware wallet model, the Web3-focused CoolWallet Pro, continues to support the Litecoin ecosystem in full.
A month later, CoolBitX (maker of CoolWallet) and the Litecoin Foundation established a unique partnership in October 2018 that elevated CoolWallet as an official Litecoin wallet. Other early highlights include our attendance of 2019’s Litecoin Summit in Las Vegas and our shared booth with the Litecoin Foundation at the Asia Blockchain Summit.
What is Litecoin?
Did you know that Litecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies and that its source code was also used to create Dogecoin! Well, now you do 😎
Litecoin (LTC) is a pioneering blockchain and cryptocurrency created by ex-Google developer Charlie Lee in October 2011 as a lightweight “fork” of the Bitcoin Core client, copying its source code to offer faster speeds and better accessibility for crypto users.
This shared source code means that it also has the same reduction in mining rewards every 4 years, just like Bitcoin, which will have its 4th halving in April 2024. Due to this shared scarcity and reduced emissions over time, Litecoin is often called “digital silver” when compared with Bitcoin’s status as “digital gold”, however, the two are very different. Just like both gold and silver are needed in the real world and often used together, so too is Litecoin complementary to Bitcoin’s cause, offering better scalability and transaction speed among other things.
How is Litecoin Different From Bitcoin?
While Litecoin is a lighter version of Bitcoin, it is anything but a carbon copy. Here’s why:
- Exponentially Cheaper: Litecoin’s average transaction fee is only $0.03 to $0.04, a fraction of Bitcoin’s fee which ranges around $7,60.
- 4x Faster Transaction Speed: Litecoin’s transactions get confirmed in about 2.5 minutes, which is four times faster than Bitcoin’s 10-minute confirmation time.
- Mining Algorithm: Litecoin uses Scrypt, a more memory-intensive algorithm, making it harder and more expensive to produce specialized mining hardware. Bitcoin uses the simpler SHA-256 algorithm.
- Merge Mining: Litecoin is merge-mined with Dogecoin (itself a fork of Litecoin’s code), which boosts security and rewards for miners on both networks.
- Supply Cap: Litecoin will have a total maximum supply of 84 million coins, four times more than Bitcoin’s 21 million coin limit.
- Mining Difficulty: Both adjust their mining difficulty every 2016 blocks, but Litecoin does it roughly every 3.5 days due to its faster block speed, compared to Bitcoin’s 14 days.
- Privacy Features: Litecoin added MWEB (Mimblewimble Extension Block) in May 2022, offering optional privacy for wallet balances and transactions.
- Vendor Support: Companies like Verifone, BitPay, and Coingate support Litecoin payments. As of June 2023, Litecoin even surpassed Bitcoin in the number of transactions, accounting for 34.9% of all payments.
The 5 Biggest Litecoin Milestones of 2023
1. Litecoin Halving (August 2023)
The third halving event of Litecoin took place last month on August 2, 2023 without any hiccups, reducing the block reward from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC. The halving ensures the slower emitting of new LTC coins and incentivizes more miners to to help secure the network through proof-of-work mining, just as with Bitcoin.
2. Proof-of-Work Summit (September 2023)
The ETC Cooperative and the Litecoin Foundation are joining hands to kick off the first-ever ‘Proof-of-Work Summit’ in the beautiful city of Prague, Czech Republic, from September 26-27, 2023.
The two organizations will work together to raise awareness of Litecoin and the challenges currently facing proof-of-work blockchains and Prague is a fitting destination thanks to it playing host to the first Bitcoin mining pool, the first hardware wallet, and even the world’s first Bitcoin cafe.It’s safe to say the city has a special place in the heart of the crypto community.
The Summit is a gathering that aims to capture the rebellious spirit of the original cypherpunks and serve a melting pot of ideas, featuring some of the brightest minds in the industry. They’ll be discussing everything from the latest in mining tech to shifts in government policies affecting crypto.
Charlie Lee will be joined by other pro-PoW speakers such as Charlie Shrem, Caitlin Long, and Jameson Lopp.
3. Metalpha Partnership (February 2023)
The Litecoin Foundation announced in February this year an important new cooperation with Metalpha Technology Holding Ltd, a frontrunner in digital asset wealth management, which will make the Litecoin ecosystem even more sustainable and risk-resilient.
The duo will research and develop various hedging solutions, promote renewable energy, and bring down carbon emissions in blockchain mining. Metalpha expertise in financial derivative products will give Litecoin miners new opportunities to hedge against market risks and minimize their environmental footprint.
In addition to their core objectives, the partners are also teaming up with Hong Kong SustainTech Foundation Ltd to explore how best to apply sustainable blockchain technologies across various real-world industries. It’s a win-win for both parties: Metalpha gets to flex its financial product design muscles, and the Litecoin Foundation gains a partner committed to sustainability and education in the always-evolving crypto space.
4. MWEB: A Game-Changer For Transaction Privacy
Litecoin made big strides since 2022 in enhancing user privacy and transaction efficiency, thanks to its MimbleWimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) integration. Initially launched in May last year, MWEB has been a hit among Litecoin Core users, offering a level of privacy that most cryptocurrencies don’t provide. The good news? MWEB is even more widely available now, thanks to its integration into mobile phone wallets.
This is a big deal for the average crypto user who has seen their privacy erode over the years due to know-your-customer (KYC) requirements and the advance of blockchain analytics. Not only does MWEB offer enhanced privacy by hiding your balance from the people you transact with, but it also makes Litecoin more convenient for everyday transactions.
5. Litecoin Spaces (Block Explorer)
Litecoin recently launched Litecoin Space: a modern Litecoin block explorer that specializes in mempool visualization and an extensive developer API. Most explorers don’t properly support mempool (unconfirmed) transactions, however Litecoin Space enables users to:
- audit if their transactions are being censored by miners
- find the cheapest, near-zero fees
- explore historical trends
Litecoin Projects
The Litecoin Foundation has various projects that aim to bolster different aspects of the Litecoin network. Here are a few of its most important:
| Litecoin Core | The full node client and backbone of its decentralized peer-to-peer network, enabling instant and global crypto transactions. |
| MWEB | The Mimblewimble Extension Block is making Litecoin more fungible, and scalable and of course, more private. |
| Lightning Network | The popular layer-2 chain makes LTC more scalable, thanks to ultra-cheap smart contract-powered micropayments. |
| OmniLite | This open-source platform is built on Litecoin to leverage its security and low fees. OmniLite allows users to create DeFi tokens, smart contracts, and even NFTs. |
The Bull Case for Litecoin in 2024
Despite sluggish overall crypto markets, several factors could seriously boost Litecoin’s adoption and price action in 2024 and beyond:
- Mainstream Merchants Are Adopting It
Litecoin payments surged in 2022 and this year is no different. As more major businesses like AMC Theaters start accepting Litecoin thanks to its speed and super-low fees, its real-world applications, particularly for payments and the Lightning Network, are likely to increase in popularity. - 2023 Halving’s Delayed Supply Shock
Several analysts predicted that the price of Litecoin would reach new all-time highs in 2023, which didn’t happen for a number of reasons such as high global interest rates and a lack of liquidity in crypto markets. The supply shock effect of August’s latest halving will likely start coming into effect a few months after the event. - Powerful development, Security, and Ecosystem
The Litecoin Core team continues to release frequent updates to the Litecoin software. The growing industry of DeFi provides largely untapped new use cases for Litecoin. Litecoin has been relatively secure in 2023, with no major security breaches or hacks, thanks to its proven decentralization and established proof-of-work consensus mechanism. Add in that it’s likely the world’s 2nd biggest proof-of-work chain now after Bitcoin following Ethereum’s Merge transition to proof-of-stake, then it becomes even more appealing. - Friendly regulators
The SEC has previously stated that it does not consider Bitcoin to be a security, but rather, a commodity like gold and silver. Litecoin (digital silver, remember?) is similar to Bitcoin in many ways, so it’s likely the SEC views it as the same. Moreover, some pundits feel that the likely approval of BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF next year will boost Litecoin’s prospects. - Enhanced Privacy Narrative
The privacy and fungibility that come with Litecoin’s MWEB MimbleWimble integration make it perfect for users who want to protect their identity when transacting.
Litecoin (LTC) Price Prediction 2024
With so much momentum from 2022 and 2023 events and achievements propelling Litecoin forward, there is a lot of bullishness about LTC’s potential upward price trajectory in 2024 and 2025. This is further supported by other positive events relating to Bitcoin and Ethereum, such as:
- The Bitcoin Halving (April 2024)
- BlackRock Bitcoin spot ETF decision (March 2024)
- Ethereum EIP4844 proto-danksharding (Dencun upgrade Q4)
- FASB reporting change
- Expected lowering of interest rates globally
In crypto, Bitcoin’s rising tide raises all ships (aka altcoins), and the performance of Litecoin is closely correlated with its big brother whose code it forked from. Let’s take a look at Bitcoin and Litecoin’s performances since 2021:
Coupled with the effects of the increased post-halving scarcity its market will start to feel next year, and if previous cycles are anything to go by, Litecoin holders can expect fireworks. Trading currently at around $60 ( a long way from its May 2021 all-time high of $412) and with the post-halving dump mostly absorbed now in bearish market conditions, there’s a lot of potential upside if BTC goes on a tear.
Some analysts predict a Litecoin price of roughly $120 and $200 in 2024 and 2025, and a 2030 price tag of $1500.
(Editor: Not Financial Advice: do your own research and invest with your head, not your heart)
Conclusion
We hope you have enjoyed our deep dive article on the Litecoin ecosystem that also celebrates the 5-year anniversary of our Litecoin Foundation partnership. Just as Litecoin has shown its resilience and earned the crypto community’s trust and respect, so too has CoolWallet since our inception in 2014.
With our own 10th birthday only a few months away (February 2024), our hardware wallets and feature-rich CoolWallet App have stood the test of time, helping to secure our 300,000 users’ crypto assets like LTC in the best and most convenient cold storage that money can buy.
With an EAL6+ secure element (and open source code for transparency), encrypted Bluetooth (military-grade), and various robust biometric verifications, you can put your trust in us, just as Charlie Lee and the Litecoin Foundation have since 2018.
Thanks for reading, and let us know on Twitter if you’d like to see a limited edition Litecoin CoolWallet Pro in the future!
