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Often thought of as the ‘little brother’ to bitcoin, Litecoin is enjoying a sharp spike in price right now, increasing by 112.27 percent from its February 6 low of $106.94, according to CoinDesk. After surging 30 percent in one day on Wednesday, the digital currency is currently valued at $224.52 and is the world’s fifth most valuable digital currency by market capitalisation. In contrast, bitcoin remains the market leader at $10,129 with the highest market cap at $170 billion. Could Litecoin reach the same high as bitcoin? Michael LaVered of cryptocurrency news site Oracle Times says Litecoin could potentially overtake in bitcoin in price as the latter “is having difficulty scaling to the level needed for general commerce” with high fees and longer transaction times.

He wrote today: “The litecoin could be the solution. Litecoin combines all of the benefits of Bitcoin, but with shorter transaction times and lower fees. "It has been on the forefront of bitcoin innovations, implementing SegWit [soft fork change in Bitcoin] early last year and now offering the possibility of lightning network and atomic swaps.” No-one knows for certain about what cryptocurrency values will be by the end of 2018 but the entire cryptocurrency market could hit $1 trillion this year, Kraken founder and CEO Jesse Powell told CNBC this week. Predicting an “acceleration” of growth after weeks of downturn and uncertainty, he told CNBC: "You've got a lot more kids graduating from crypto programs at universities now. I think we're just going to see it continue exponentially from here."

GETTY Litecoin: Will it reach Bitcoin's price high?

Why is Litecoin surging in price? Litecoin’s growth is being linked to a potential hard fork called LitePay, set to be released on February 26. The transaction process will enable Litecoin users to purchase products and services through businesses with a flat transaction fee of one percent. According to Palwasha Saaim, a Research Analyst at Lombardi Financial, LitePay will truly be a “game changer.”

Cryptocurrency price: A year in charts Mon, March 12, 2018 Compare crypto currencies (Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, LiteCoin) on value, market cap and supply for the past year Play slideshow coindesk.com 1 of 10 LiteCoin is going down with the market dip

GETTY Litecoin has the fifth most valuable digital currency by market capitalisation