Litecoin ($LTC), the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, has seen its acceptance skyrocket, to the point that the total number of addresses on the network has now overtaken the total number of addresses on Ethereum ($ETH).
According to Glassnode data given by the Litecoin Foundation’s director, $LTC’s growth has recently surged substantially, surpassing Ethereum’s total number of addresses.
It’s worth noting that the measure “total addresses” employed by on-chain analytics firm Glassnode represents the number of distinct addresses that have participated in any transaction (as sender or receiver) on the blockchain network since its inception till now.
An address on a public blockchain, such as Bitcoin’s, is a unique identifier that allows users to send and receive transactions, but it does not reflect a single person, as a user can generate several addresses for free. Some privacy advocates recommend that consumers generate a new address for each transaction.
The rapid increase in addresses comes as Litecoin’s hashrate reached a new all-time high of about 680 TH/s. Litecoin, like Bitcoin, has a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm.
LTC’s hashrate has increased while its price has skyrocketed. The cryptocurrency has gained more over 30% in the last 30 days, beating most other prominent digital assets.
Litecoin, like Bitcoin, experiences halving events, in which the coinbase reward for miners that discover blocks on the network is halved. The next halving event for Litecoin is scheduled for August 2023, and it will cut mining payouts from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC. Halving occurrences are considered bullish since they cut new supply on the market in half.
According to CryptoGlobe, historical Litecoin pricing data predicts that the price of Litecoin may increase months after its halving event, reaching a new all-time high next year. However, the coin may experience a correction immediately following the halving.
Litecoin “trends to rally quite strongly before its halving,” according to data analysed by popular cryptocurrency analyst Rekt Capital, with the cryptocurrency rising 820% after bottoming out 122 days ahead of its first-ever halving and rising 550% after bottoming out 243 days ahead of its second halving.
Historically, the cryptocurrency has performed better following its halving event. LTC increased by 12,400% after its first halving, and by 1,573% after its second halving.
After more than two weeks of accumulation by huge addresses holding between 1,000 and 100,000 LTC, the price of Litecoin rose late last year, outpacing the market.
