Analyzing the factors powering Litecoin's [LTC] latest surge

LTC’s rally has made it the talk of the town with social mentions and engagements increasing.
LTC’s Open Interest surged to its highest since the bull market phase of 2021.

Litecoin [LTC] was one of the top gainers in the crypto market in the last 24 hours, increasing by 2.24% at the time of publication, data from CoinMarketCap revealed.

In fact, LTC has grown from strength to strength over the last week and was within touching distance of the psychologically significant $90 mark.

The rise in price contributed to Litecoin’s social volume as it was the ‘Coin of the Day’ on 15 May, according to a tweet by LunarCrush. This indicated that social mentions and engagements for the coin have drastically increased.

The most recent increase in LTC’s price may be the result of a number of factors working together.

Litecoin is Coin of the Day on LunarCrush! LTC was automatically chosen based on leading combined social + market performance.
Galaxy Score™ 51/100
AltRank™ 2/4389
Real-time #litecoin metrics: https://t.co/FgxN4SdNhb pic.twitter.com/ofLXznL8Ed
— LunarCrush (@LunarCrush) May 15, 2023

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Litecoin Profit Calculator

Scalability push for Litecoin

The recent surge in transactions on Bitcoin [BTC] which clogged the network and compelled exchanges to pause BTC withdrawals, has reignited the concerns around Bitcoin’s scalability problem.

In order to combat growing congestion, crypto exchange Binance said that it would incorporate the Lightning Network—an L2 scaling solution intended to enable fast transactions.

Recently, while responding to Binance, Litecoin divulged that it was the first to carry out a Lightning transaction on the network, increasing its scalability by up to 10 times. Amidst growing congestion on Bitcoin, users would be tempted to switch over to Litecoin.

DYK: The very first @lightning transaction was made on #Litecoin?
One of the latest innovations to $LTC is #MWEB, giving Litecoin 10x scalability. https://t.co/ekSGVM9cCD
— Litecoin (@litecoin) May 14, 2023

Moreover, KuCoin Pool, a leading global cryptocurrency mining platform, has announced the launch of Litecoin and Dogecoin [DOGE] joint mining pool services. The joint mining service offers a more efficient and profitable mining experience for users.

This merged mining technology is also expected to increase the overall rewards for LTC miners considering that the upcoming halving event, which is a little over two months away, will cut down mining incentives by half.

🚀 Get your mining gear ready! #KuCoin Pool is offering 0️⃣ mining fees for the first month of LTC mining.
⏰10:00:00 on May 16, 2023 to 00:00:00 on June 16, 2023 (UTC)
🥳Join now for a chance to win a share of 350 USDT!
— KuCoin (@kucoincom) May 15, 2023

Network activity continues to soar

Much like BTC, LTC’s network activity has exploded to levels never seen before. The daily active addresses skyrocketed to an all-time high of 832,000 on 10 May with daily transactions also attaining its zenith on the same day.

The demand for the Litecoin network might have increased after the recent announcement of LTC-20 token standard for Litecoin NFTs.

Source: Santiment

How much are 1,10,100 LTCs worth today?

LTC’s upward momentum has led to a spike in the speculative interest in the coin. The nominal value of LTC’s Open Interest (OI) surged to $434.22 million, at the time of writing- the highest since the bull market phase of 2021.

A rise in price followed by a rise in OI signals that more money is coming into the market and confirms the uptrend.