As many digital currencies struggle to make back their losses in light of the altcoin crash of early 2018, the news is brighter for Litecoin , which seems set to make massive strides towards consolidating its position in the market. The big news for the currency, and the one that’s prompting the speculation on Litecoin’s future, is the impending launch of LitePay, a new service for processing Litecoin. While no reliable release date has been announced as yet, the smart money is on a launch sometime within the next seven days. LitePay is a third party app, though the Litecoin Foundation has played a supporting role in its development, to make sure that all necessary considerations have been included to allow it process Litecoin correctly for merchants signing up to the service. The application will be to Litecoin what BitPay is to Bitcoin. In effect, it acts as a gateway between vendors and users of Litecoin, allowing third-party businesses to accept payments in a cryptocurrency without having to trade in a given altcoin themselves. In other words, you pay a vendor in LiteCoin through their online checkout, the LitePay app kicks in behind the scenes, converting it into whatever value your purchase has in the vendor’s fiat currency of choice. Your Litecoin wallet is billed the appropriate amount (plus a conversion fee) and the merchant gets the correct sum in dollars, or pounds, or whatever.It is widely accepted that BitPay is what allowed Bitcoin to corner the market in terms of real-life transactions, as opposed to blockchain application, and experts predict that LitePay will facilitate the same growth for Litecoin, finally enabling the coin to achieve mass adoption. In addition, the app will make storing, spending, and accepting Litecoin an absolute breeze. If the digital currency is truly headed for the mainstream, then ease-of-use will be a primary factor in getting it there. Some financial analysts have taken the plunge and predicted that, if LitePay is rolled out successfully, Litecoin itself should comfortably reach a price of $400 per coin in 2018.