The Silver to Bitcoin’s Gold: What is Behind the Litecoin Rally

All eyes have been on the king of crypto this month as Bitcoin keeps cranking to new multi-year highs; however, its little brother Litecoin has also been on a tear.

Often called the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, Litecoin has been flying recently adding over 14% in the past 24 hours to reach $76 according to Tradingview.com. It is the highest price LTC has been at since February this year when it topped $83, again following in the shadows of its big brother back then.

Litecoin is still way down from its all-time high which came in early December 2017 when it skyrocketed to $400 briefly. Founder Charlie Lee selling out at the peak did the project no favors at the time.

It's digital silver y'all :/ pic.twitter.com/y5UE4zAp8i

— Messari (@MessariCrypto) November 16, 2020

Institutions Driving Litecoin Back to Sixth Place

The crypto stalwart has surged up the market capitalization charts knocking Bitcoin Cash, Polkadot, and Binance Coin out of its path to reclaim sixth spot. LTC market cap is just below $5 billion at the moment and Chainlink is its next target. Lee also commented on the latest flippening with this cryptic post;

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— Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) November 16, 2020

It was also noted that institutional investment funds such as Grayscale have also been loading up on cheaply priced Litecoin recently.

Litecoin has surpassed Bitcoin Cash on both Market Cap and Grayscale’s holdings. https://t.co/Ex0AtdmAwW

— Al (@lite_hause) November 16, 2020

In October, Litecoin Foundation director Alan Austin commented;

“Grayscale says they’ve seen “unprecedented” demand for Litecoin Trust and two other products, with inflows increasing by more than 1400% quarter-over-quarter!”

Fundamental Factors

There has been very little news on Litecoin recently as all attention has been focused on its bit brother and the DeFi sector. Developments with privacy and scaling have been continuing with MimbleWimble and the MWEB testnet launched in early October. There are also several ongoing discussions on a proposed ‘velvet fork’ for the blockchain.

Additionally, Litecoin has always been one of the go-to cryptocurrencies for any major payment providers, with PayPal being the latest to support it.

It appears that current momentum is coming from technical catalysts as long term charts show that LTC is still way undervalued, especially when compared to its big brother which is now less than 20% away from its all-time high. Litecoin comparatively still has 433% to go to reach ATH from its current levels.

Its next resistance level will be February’s high of $85 and beyond that, the pre-halving pump in 2019 that took prices as high as $145.