Litecoin vs. GBP – Cryptocurrencies

Instrument description

Litecoin is one of the world’s most recognized cryptocurrency that works on the advanced blockchain technology that offers a peer to peer and decentralize mode of transaction. In 2009, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, and since then the scope and popularity of digital currencies have increased in offering an alternative form of exchanging money without the need of any intermediary such as banks or government financial institution.

Bitcoin was a benchmark in cryptocurrency and the famous digital currencies we today such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Dash work more or less on the same blockchain technology. Litecoin is also another open-source cryptocurrency that was released by Charlie Lee on October 7, 2011, and went live on October 13, 2011.

Litecoin is developed on a blockchain protocol similar to Bitcoin, which is why Litecoin is also referred to as a younger brother of Bitcoin. Litecoin is the third most popularly traded cryptocurrency based on market capitalization after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Among digital currencies, Bitcoin is termed as ‘Digital Gold’ while Litecoin is attributed to ‘Digital Silver’.

Litecoin is considered as an upgraded version of Bitcoin and was developed with the aim to remove or reduce the issues that users faced in Bitcoin. For example, Litecoin is known to manage fast transaction speed and volume as compared to Bitcoin. Litecoin works on the hashing algorithm called ‘Scrypt’ while Bitcoin works on the SHA-256 hashing algorithm.

There is frequent block generation in Litecoin that allows the network to support the increasing number of transactions without needing any modifications in the software. In Litecoin, a new block is developed in 2.5 minutes which is four times faster than Bitcoin (10 minutes). Litecoin is capped at 84 million while Bitcoin is capped at 21 million. Litecoin can easily be bought and traded through Coinbase, Bittrex, or OKEx. The miners are awarded 25 Litecoin on one block generation.

In May 2017, Litecoin was the first cryptocurrency to adopt Segregated Witness, also known as ‘SegWit’ which would allow more blocks to be processed at a given instant and increase the transaction speed. Also at the end of 2017, Litecoin was first to use Lightning Network to complete a transaction.

What is the LTC/GBP currency pair?

The Litecoin (LTC) pairing with Great Britain Pound (GBP) is given by ‘LTC/GBP’ where LTC is the base currency, while GBP is the quote currency. The LTC/GBP pairing shows a combination of LTC, which is a cryptocurrency increasing in popularity, and the Great British Pound, which is the oldest and third most traded currency in the world after the US Dollar and Euro. Litecoin provides volatility while the GBP balances the pair with stability, liquidity, and volume.

Traders residing in the UK tend to be more calm trading LTC with GBP as they know about the price volatility and stability of the British Pound as compared to other major currencies.

The LTC/GBP pair attracts day traders due to its volatility and liquidity. The average daily of GBP is said to be 0.6%, while the average volatility of LTC is from 5%. The daily price changes in LTC/GBP allow traders to try to profit from the volatility.

The LTC/GBP indicates the relationship of Litecoin with the British Pound. The LTC/GBP pair shows how many British Pounds are needed to buy one Litecoin. The current exchange rate is 1 LTC = £35.64.

History of LTC/GBP Pair

Litecoin was developed by Charlie Lee who worked in Google and was also Engineering Director at Coinbase. Lee was one of the first individuals to change or perform a ‘hard fork’ on the Bitcoin protocol. The alteration in Bitcoin code was done to improve the payment speed and also offer economical transaction cost.

Litecoin is a peer to peer, open-source digital currency that was released on October 7, 2011, but went live on October 13, 2011. The price of Litecoin in the first two years was not remarkable and hovered around £1.60 till October 2015. However, in 2017, the value of Litecoin started to improve, and it touched an all-time high value of £294 in December 2017. Also, Litecoin crossed $1 billion mark in market capitalization. The current market capitalization of LTC/GBP is £2.3 billion, and the circulating supply is 65.50 million.

Great Britain Pound is the oldest currency that is still being traded across the world. Since decades British Pound was seen as a symbol of wealth and progress and until the 1950s GBP also remained a benchmark for all the other global currencies, but then the US Dollar became the most influential currency in the world. Still, British Pound is ranked among the top four currencies when it comes to popularity and contribution to the daily Forex transactions. GBP is the official currency of the United Kingdom (UK). British Pound is quite a stable currency usually with no sudden volatility.

How to analyze the LTC/GBP Price Chart

If we observe the price chart of the LTC/GBP pair, we see that the pair traded in the range of £50.00 to £65.00 from the last week of January 2020 to the last week of February 2020. The value of LTC/GBP fell to the lowest value of £25.98 on March 16, 2020, but then started to gain and trade positively from the first week of May 2020 but with constant fluctuations. In the last few months, the value of LTC/GBP is trading from £35.00 to £55.00 from the last week of July 2020 to the third week of September 2020. The highest value of LTC/GBP was £51.27 on August 17, 2020.

Currently, LTC/GBP pair trades on £35.64. The Bid price is 35.44, while the Ask price is 35.50.

If you speculate that the price of LTC will rise as compared the GBP, then you will go long or Buy, and likewise, if you assume the price of LTC will fall against the GBP, then you will go short or Sell.

What causes price change in the LTC/GBP pair?

Litecoin was developed to remove some of the flaws or shortcomings in Bitcoin and Litecoin was quite effective as transaction speeds improved significantly, and Litecoin was also capped higher as compared to Bitcoin. But as Litecoin was derived more or less from Bitcoin, so similar factors affect the value of both Bitcoin and Litecoin. Some of the key aspects that traders and investor should know when trading using Litecoin are

• The number and value of competing cryptocurrencies
• The total number of Litecoin miners and the cost of mining
• Currently, only a few exchanges offer Litecoin, and if the number of exchanges offering Litecoin increases than the demand and value of Litecoin will also rise.
• The domestic and global adoption and regulatory policies regarding cryptocurrencies also impact the price of Litecoin.

The value of British Pound is controlled by the Bank of England (BOE) that issues the monetary policy regarding interest rates and other key economic parameters. The price of British Pound is influenced by employment rate, inflation, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), trade relations, and regional politics. In recent years GBP has seen fluctuations quite often due to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) which was asserted through a public referendum in 2016 and finalized at the end of January 2020.

The information above is for education purposes only and cannot be considered as investment advice. Past performance is not reliable indicator of future results.