In perhaps the biggest news to come out of the cryptocurrency scene in recent days, two of the major players in the alternative finance sector – Monero and Litecoin – appear set to merge with one another, to make each brand interoperable with one another. Rumours of the merger began following a series of tweets posted by Riccardo Spagni, the project lead of Monero, and founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee. The two had met and Spagni decided to post that the reason for the meeting was to discuss a joining of the two companies. While it was really no more than that – half a joke between two businessmen in the same industry, half a trolling of the altcoin community – it seems to have struck a chord, particularly with Lee, who lost little time in posting his own tweets where he seemed to be seriously considering the idea.Lee had already been recently in the news, following reports that he had sold all his personal stocks of Litecoin after a recent peak in its value. This led to accusations of “desertion” from some industry observers, and a resultant drop in the value of Litecoin which had, thus far, been one of the more stable digital currencies on the market. Naturally, when Spagni’s first tweet went live, those same observers were quick to point out that Lee was already stripping his assets in anticipation. Regardless of that, a merger between Monero and Litecoin would be a good thing for them, for their respective coins, and for the cryptocurrency sector as a whole. While neither is the superstar coinage that Bitcoin is, they bring important considerations to the table. As discussed, Litecoin is one of the more stable altcoins on the market, and it also has access to most of the world’s cryptocurrency exchanges, which is a boon to Monero. However, Monero brings its own benefits to the partnership with its anonymity protocols which are some of the most secure in the business.