The price of litecoin spiked to $81 on Wednesday amid notable news for the cryptocurrency often called the silver to bitcoin’s gold.

The world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market value looks to have picked up a bid on reports that the Litecoin Foundation has acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Germany’s WEG Bank through a new partnership with crypto-to-fiat payments provider TokenPay.

The strategic partnership has opened the doors for new consumer-focused crypto payment solutions, and, according to litecoin founder Charlie Lee, is a “huge win-win” for all parties.

While the news has certainly brought cheer to the battered litecoin bulls today, the technical charts remain biased to the bears.

At press time, LTC is trading at $79.50 – up 4.73 percent on a 24-hour basis, having lost more than 50 percent in the last two months. Trading volume for the last 24 hours is stagnant at just over $3 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Daily chart

Litecoin’s decline from the session high of $81.00 marks a failure on the part of the bulls to cut through the falling trendline resistance.

The chart also shows a bearish crossover between the 5- and 10-day moving averages (MAs).

Further, the long-term MAs are positioned one below the other and are trending south in favor of the bears.

Thus, the path of least resistance is to the downside.

Weekly chart

On the longer-term chart above, the 5- and 10-week MAs are sloping downwards, indicating a bearish setup. The relative strength index (RSI) is hovering below 50.00 (in the bearish territory).

View

A break below $75.42 (today’s low) would bolster the already bearish technical setup and could yield a drop to $69.00 (100-week MA).

Only a daily close (as per UTC) above the falling trendline would confirm a short-term bearish-to-bullish trend change.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.

Litecoin image via Shutterstock