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Often known as the silver too Bitcoin’s (CCC:BTCGold, the timing may be the right time for investors to invest in gold Litecoin (CCC:LTC). Litecoin, one of the oldest altcoins, is up over 85% since December 10th.
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In early January, the cryptocurrency market was briefly valued at over $ 1 trillion. Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin’s value was paramount. And that makes sense. It sounds more appealing to throw away the fact that Bitcoin is trading at more than $ 36,000 per coin. According to Forbes, a bitcoin can be worth up to $ 500,000 by 2030.
Litecoin, however, correlates almost perfectly with Bitcoin. According to the Coin Predictor, the correlation coefficient of their prices is 0.83. In the -1 to 1 range, a score of 1 represents the strongest positive correlation. And you can buy Litecoin for literally a fraction of what it costs to buy Bitcoin.
But why is it different now? One of my favorite sayings is that life happens while you are making other plans. I often see trends that seem to pop up overnight, but if you’re careful, the cornerstone has been laid. And that’s exactly what will happen to Litecoin in 2021, in my opinion.
From fear to fun
Cryptocurrency is maturing and has nothing to do with the value of digital currency. It matures in its news. When Bitcoin began to pique the imagination of investors, it seemed too complicated for the average investor to look into.
And in truth it was. You had to be extremely tech savvy to invest in Litecoin. But that is not the case today. While a few years ago you had to know the programming to initiate a cryptocurrency wallet (a digital wallet for a specific cryptocurrency), today there are mobile apps that make buying and selling cryptocurrency easier.
While easy access is important, there is also a psychological component.
Remember, when Bitcoin launched in 2009, the world was still being hit by the effects of the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve had begun its quantitative easing process, which would take nearly a decade. Wealth in the form of fiat currency was put down. It was the perfect storm for an alternate currency.
The problem was that some investors may have been afraid of missing out. The bigger fear was getting involved and losing an entire investment.
There will always be an audience buying Litecoin and other currencies to hedge against the devaluation of the fiat currency. But part of the cryptocurrency growing up means it’s going mainstream. For example, the divisibility of the cryptocurrency is ideal for Robinhood investors who can buy Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies directly through the app.
Litecoin becomes a medium of exchange
One of the advantages of owning cryptocurrency is that there are a limited number of coins in circulation (for Litecoin, 84 million). However, one of the barriers to mainstream adoption has been the lack of utility of property. The currency was nowhere near widely accepted.
In that respect PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) helps litecoin and other digital currencies to take a big step towards legitimacy. By providing a limited number of cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin, on its platform, the use case for Litecoin should be expanded.
And that’s perhaps the biggest argument in favor of Litecoin and other cryptos. When I started using PayPal it was great for peer-to-peer transactions. But in the end I had to transfer money to my bank account in order for it to be useful. Today I have a PayPal debit card (which offers minimal rewards) and PayPal is a popular method of payment. Simply put, using my PayPal account is just as efficient as using my traditional bank account.
And that’s another reason to think about Litecoin. The altcoin was first created as “the better blockchain”, but no one knew the benefit of processing transactions faster than Bitcoin meant. As cryptocurrency becomes more useful, users will come to appreciate the security and speed of litecoin.
Big money could come
At some point, the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency may be more clearly defined. In this case, the institutional investors are likely to bring the big dollars into the crypto markets.
So now is the time for investors to buy Litecoin. The pandemic may have allowed some of us to blink on cryptocurrencies. But now that we open our eyes, the landscape has changed and cryptocurrencies are growing up. Investing in Litecoin is not without risk, but if you have room for a little speculation in your portfolio, this may be the best time to buy.
At the time of this writing, Chris Markoch held positions (neither directly nor indirectly) in the securities identified in this article.
Chris Markoch is a freelance finance copywriter who has covered the market for seven years. He has been writing for Investor Place since 2019.
The post The Party May Just Start for Litecoin first appeared on InvestorPlace.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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