It isn’t a secret that the crypto market has been beaten and battered to hell and back. Case in point, Bloomberg recently reported that Bitcoin posted its sixth month of consecutive losses in an industry first.

Yet, one investor, who cites an integral part of the codebases of both Bitcoin and Litecoin, claims that there’s no cause for alarm. And here’s why.

Crypto Catalysts: LTC Block Reward Halving Nears

Moon Overlord, a leading crypto trader that has garnered quite the following on Twitter, recently remarked that the next Litecoin block reward halving is approaching — and fast. In fact, the project’s second issuance reduction, with the first being in 2015, is nearly 200 days away.

The #Litecoin halving is quickly approaching



LTC bottomed approximately 200 days before it's halving in 2015



We are almost exactly 200 days away from the next $LTC halving



LTC peaked 2+ years after it's halving, If it follows a similar path this time the peak will be in 2021 pic.twitter.com/UbsQdEmhnN — Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) January 29, 2019

Using historical analysis, Overlord determined that LTC, the sixth cryptocurrency be market capitalization (according to Live Coin Watch), found a long-term floor 200 days before the same event in 2015. While Overlord was hesitant to explicitly admit that the same was slated to occur, he/she did remark that LTC is nearing that 200-day out mark.

So, if history rhymes, not repeats, LTC could bottom in the coming days (potentially along with the wider crypto market too ), and could peak some time in 2021.

Yet, some aren’t convinced that the popular cryptocurrency, made popular by its integration on Coinbase, will find a bottom in the coming weeks. In fact, through the use of fractals, a form of technical/historical analysis that weighs previous bouts of price action against those seen at current, the so-called “Magic Poop Cannon” determined that LTC could fall to as low $6. Crazy, right?

It isn’t rare to see a dichotomy form between forecasts touted by prominent crypto analysts. But interestingly, Magic and Overlord have yet to clash.

Overlord’s most recent quip on the matter of block reward shifts and cryptocurrency issuance schedules comes after he shilled the idea of Bitcoin’s May 2020 “halvening” seemingly incessantly. Similarly to his Litecoin forecast, the trader, who sports over 40,000 followers on Twitter, remarked that BTC could begin running in May of this year, citing the crypto’s previous price action and the inherent importance of the deflationary nature of BTC (supply v.s. demand economics).

Litecoin May Implement On-Chain Privacy

Crypto’s recent infatuation with the impending Litecoin block reward reduction comes as the project has begun to seek the implementation of on-chain privacy and fungibility.

As reported by this very outlet previously, Charlie Lee, the fervent leader behind the Litecoin Foundation, recently took to Twitter to make a surprising announcement, which garnered thousands of likes on the social media platform.

After hinting at the introduction of fungibility- and privacy-centric features to his brainchild for months, Lee confirmed that he would be working on implementing Confidential Transactions (CT) into Litecoin’s blockchain.

In subsequent tweets and a blog post, it was confirmed that the implementation of CT, a soft-forkable network addition originally proposed by Blockstream’s chief executive, Adam Back, could occur “sometime in 2019.” Lee, backing his shift in strategy, noted that activation of CTs would be “the final hurdle for cryptocurrencies to become ‘sound money’.

For those who missed the memo, CTs drastically increase the privacy and traceability of blockchain-based transactions by encrypting inputs and outputs. Monero uses a variation of the base technology to disallow the tracking of XMR transfers.

