There is no denying the fact until a couple of weeks ago; Bitcoin (BTC) trumped Litecoin (LTC) in almost everything except transaction speed and fees. You could argue that these two make the latter a better cryptocurrency then.

Well, that is a point, but it would come across as being too simplistic. Since 2011, Litecoin has lived under the great shadow of its predominant relative. In fact, Crypto watchers have been so apprehensive, wondering whether the coin would ever come out of the shadow.

It took a controversial move by Litecoin’s founder Charlie Lee to haul it onto its two feet. Until that seemingly unwise step by one of the cryptocurrency’s sharpest minds, you would argue it was Bitcoin 50 – 0 Litecoin. Now it seems BTC will have to watch out because there is a “new kid” on the block.

Not much sets Bitcoin apart from Litecoin. In fact, the two work similarly in almost all aspects of their blockchain operations. Here though is a summary of the key areas that bring out a few fundamental differences.

Summary of Bitcoin vs. Litecoin

Bitcoin Litecoin Creation January 3rd, 2009 October 7th, 2011 Max. Coin supply 21 Million 84 Million Consensus Algorithm SHA-256 Scrypt Block Time 10 minutes 2.5 minutes Block reward halving 210,000 blocks. 840,000 blocks Current block reward 12.5 BTC 25 LTC Block explorer blockchain.info block-explorer.com Price (All-time high) Price (Today) $19,535 (coinmarketcap.com) $366 (coinmarketcap.com) Market capitalization (Today) $163 billion $10.4 billion

Price/Market capitalization vs. Investment

There isn’t a single cryptocurrency, even in the current bearish market, that can claim to be as valuable as Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin’s popularity has made it the standard measure for all the other cryptocurrencies, including LTC.

Today, BTC accounts for the vast majority of payment transactions done in cryptocurrency. It dominates the market with 44% of the entire market capitalization. Amid the uncertain market movement, BTC has plunged to lows of $8334. Remember its ATH was $19,535 on Dec 17, 2017.

Litecoin (LTC) is ranked 5th on cryptocurrency site coinmarketcap. Litecoin’s price remained flat between 2013 and early 2017. However, from 5th April, its price spiked from a low of just $4 to an all-time high of $367 by December 19th, 2017.

Its market cap also jumped, climbing from $205 million to $20 billion. Though that boom was felt across all of the cryptocurrency, for LTC, it represented a very important milestone. Investors took notice and the ship steadied.

Since then, @satoshilite’s coin has been one of the steady coins in the market. Though its value has dropped to the current $154 against the U.S dollar, it is still considered less volatile than Bitcoin.

G20 assurances, Litecoin better investment for hodling

In terms of which one is a better investment, I go with bitcoin for the present. But on the strength of Litecoin’s cheaper and faster transactions, I just see it snatching the crown from the king. Two possible explanations come to mind:

One: The probability that a major company like Amazon could decide to use Litecoin over Bitcoin is much alive.

Two: Even though the LitePay launch failed, Litecoin just scored big when Global decided to build its cryptocurrency portfolio app on the Litecoin network. BTC is likely to remain the best store of value and mega payments.

LTC on the hand will completely overrun the retail micro-payment market. So, if I am an investor looking for a coin that doesn’t bounce about so much, LTC would be the one I go for.

The value of Bitcoin dropped to $7484 on Sunday following negative signals from Twitter. With Facebook and Google already implementing bans against cryptocurrency ads, Twitter is reported to be considering the same move.

That affected prices of both BTC and LTC. However, BTC quickly bounced back 9.7% to trade at $8,361 on Monday. This happens as there are assurances from the G20 that there won’t be new regulations on cryptocurrency.

As reported by Reuters, the current fears encompassing bitcoin and crypto sphere should subside following the assurances. While Bitcoin (BTC) shot up almost 10% on Monday, Litecoin (LTC) only gained by about 5% against the US dollar.

We also expect some of the bear sellers of BTC to offload to Litecoin. Overall, we should see both coins gain in value over the next 2-3 months. Long-term, we foresee a realistic price prediction of $400 for LTC and $15,000 for BTC by Q4 of 2018. Should the market embark on a wild ride, put your lambo hopes on Litecoin. It has so much going for it.