Earlier this month on the 2nd of November the Litecoin network processed a new daily record of 67,142 transactions, reaching levels that were last seen in September of 2018 and surpassing all prior yearly records according to data provided by BitInfoCharts. Not all is as it seems however and the anomalous statistics stands out when put in the context of the standard ~20,000 daily transactions we typically see.

The majority of these transactions appear to have originated between blocks **1729590 & [1729630](https://blockchair.com/litecoin/block/1729630)** and the culprit appears to be a single actor on the network as all these transactions lead back to one address: LasGvLmUa527EWT2kq5R5ZohhFBysZQYnv

The address split Ł0.26872732 evenly into amounts of Ł0.00000410 between 45,000+ address over 18 transactions. All the address involved were ltc1 otherwise known as bech32 (native segwit) type addresses. Once split the coins were then sent in amounts of Ł0.00000300 to other unique bech32 address resulting in over 45,000 new transactions being broadcast onto the network, causing the anomalous spike.

While this activity shares many characteristics with a typical dust attack, all the addresses involved seem to be newly generated so the motive behind this behaviour appears to more likely be private testing and not tracking other network participants. This is supported by the fact that a majority of the coins have been consolidated back together shortly after.

The move has subsequently notably caused Segwit usage to hit a new high of 87% before receding back to around ~70% where it currently sits.