Litcoin (LTC), after its recent block halving, has continued to decline in price on its Bitcoin trading pair, and the crypto is now bouncing off of the bottom of its post-2017 price floor. As with Ethereum and XRP before it, we must be concerned that this level will not hold, and that 2017 price history will form our next support levels down.
Looking on the daily chart, we see a falling wedge pattern (a bullish pattern). Litecoin bounced off the low support during Bitcoin’s most recent – now fizzled – runup to $12,000, and is now riding the topside of this pattern.
A breakout here would be nice, although it would probably come at the cost of more Bitcoin downside. And on this chart, it’s getting to the point of now-or-never: Litecoin must either break out here or revisit lows now seen in years, just as XRP and ETH have.
The weekly chart, below, illustrates just how broken down LTC/BTC has got. Indeed, Ethereum’s BTC chart looked much the same before breaking down below levels held for years. Repeated retesting of critical levels often results in them breaking.
Looking at the 4-hour indicators below, we unfortunately do not see any overtly encouraging signs. A sharp selloff followed as soon as LTC peeked over the trendline and even threatened to break out.
On the other hand, the price at ₿0.0074 looks to draw support. The MACD/histogram shows nothing but weakness recently, although at present seems to be rolling back up for another shot at the positive side. Volume is low overall, and the RSI is not telling any different story than price.
In short, there is little indication one way or the other as to whether or not LTC can break out here. Faintly higher highs and lows on the price chart are the only thing we have to go on at the moment.
(source: Bitinfocharts.com)
A final chart, of Litecoin’s hashrate, shows that the mining community is paring back its support of the network after the halving. Such events create a situation of heightened competition, as less efficient miners are forced off the network in the face of – overnight – doubled operating costs. Diminished hashrate will eventually cause the mining difficulty to adjust.
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