Flash Hike: Litecoin [LTC] is now the fourth largest cryptocurrency; price pumps by 17% in 7 hours

Litecoin often referred to as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold by its creator Charlie Lee has become the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market cap as per data obtained from CoinMarketCap.

As per the below chart, the prices of Litecoin started their rally on February 08, 2019, 02:00 UTC and is still pumping at the time of writing.

The prices at the start of the rally opened at $32.65, closed a few pennies later, but the rally didn’t stop at this candle. The subsequent candles increased in height and so did the volume.

The on the same day at 08:00 hit a home run as the candle opened at $33.45 and closed at $35.94, which is a percentage increase of 7.44% in a single candle.

However, the total increase in the price happened from $32.52 to $37.98, which is an increase of 16.79% within a span of 6 hours. The next candle formed is currently above the previous candle.

The market cap of Litecoin at the time of writing was $2.22 billion and the trading volume was $200 million shy of reaching $1 billion.

A massive amount of trade volume is coming from Coineal Exchange, which is contributed a whopping $64 million in trade volume via LTC/BTC pair.

In addition, OKEx contributes $55 million trade volume via the same pair but contributes $35 million LTC/USDT pair. DigiFinex contributes a total of $50 million via LTC/BTC pair.

The community is baffled by the sudden increase in prices and speculates that it could be due two reasons, the first being that Charlie Lee’s tweets about implementing privacy to Litecoin blockchain via implementation of Taproot.

The second reason being that Litecoin’s block halving is just a few months away, i.e., August 08, 2019, where the block rewards for miners will effectively be reduced from 25 LTC per block to 12.5 LTC per block.

The sudden increase in prices has caused LTC to run up the ladder and take a shot at top 5 coins like Bitcoin Cash [BCH], Tether [USDT] etc.

Litecoin currently sits as the fourth largest cryptocurrency, just below Ethereum [ETH], pushing Bitcoin Cash, EOS and Tether down to lower ranks. Litecoin was earlier the seventh largest cryptocurrency.

@cryptotic tweeted:

“yes. the imminent halving around the corner.. #litecoin #bitcoin #cryptocurrency”