Litecoin Reaches 1-Month High After Hard Fork

Litecoin rallied today, climbing to its highest in more than a month following the Litecoin Cash hard fork that took place on Sunday.

The alternative protocol asset's (altcoin) price rose to as much as $253.90, according to CoinMarketCap.

At this point, Litecoin was up roughly 16.8% over the last 24 hours and more than 135% from the recent low it hit on February 6, additional CoinMarketCap figures show.

This was also the first time that Litecoin reached $250 since mid-January.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Litecoin Cash

Litecoin has been experiencing tailwinds lately, pushing higher as traders piled in to the digital currency in anticipation of the hard fork, which rewarded those holding Litecoin with units of the newly created Litecoin Cash.

This new cryptocurrency is similar to Litecoin, but with a few minor adjustments.

Litecoin Cash came in to existence on February 18, more than six months after Bitcoin Cash - a fork of Bitcoin - was created.

Both of these newly created digital currencies appear to have drawn substantial interest from investors, with Bitcoin Cash repeatedly ranking as one of the top five cryptocurrencies by market capitalization (market cap) on CoinMarketCap.

Hard Fork Implications

Several analysts weighed in on what digital currencies created from hard forks mean for the broader space.

Chris Keshian, co-founder of the Apex Token Fund, commented on the viability of such projects.

"With enough support, a completely new version of these currencies can be created from a fork, and modified with slight advantages."

"If those advantages are sound, the new chain can draw increasing support, creating a new, vibrant community," he continued. "It is organic, and allows for constant convex tinkering and competition."

Charles Thorngren, CEO of Noble Alternative Investments, also gave his two cents on the situation.

Hard forks like the one that produced Litecoin Cash "respark" the "interest of investors," he claimed.

"In a rapidly evolving field, forks allow coins to be relevant in streams of use while still keeping their existing platform functioning," he said. "Forks will be the means to increase acceptance of crypto currencies to the masses."

Marouane Garcon, managing director of Amulet, a crypto-to-crypto derivatives platform that focuses on customer success and usability, elaborated on how executing hard forks can help set the resulting digital currencies up for success.

"100% half of the branding work is already done for you and you’re just piggybacking off of the forked currencies success," he emphasized.

A New Trend?

These hard forks could become more prevalent over time, predicted Garcon.

"I believe at some point we’ll enter a period in crypto where there will be an influx of forked crypto projects," he said.

Garcon elaborated, adding:

There’s a lot of great tech out there and they’re missing a few features in order to be next level and there are developers out there that believe they can take them there. We’ll hit an innovation wall at some point, it happens in every industry. When that happens, a barrage incremental and earth shaking forks will emerge.

Disclosure: I own some Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether.

By: Charles Bovaird

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cbovaird/2018/02/20/litecoin-reaches-1-month-high-after-hard-fork/#6adeb7ec6659