Litecoin ($LTC), a cryptocurrency that has often been described as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, has been outperforming the wider cryptocurrency market over the past few weeks, to the point it has recently overtaken Solana ($SOL) in market capitalization.
Litecoin was created back in 2011 as a fork of Bitcoin, and features near-zero cost peer-to-peer transactions. It differs from the flagship cryptocurrency in a number of ways, however, with reduced transaction confirmation times, lower fees, a larger maximum supply of 84 million LTC, and other different technical aspects.
The cryptocurrency was created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, who referred to it as a “lite version of Bitcoin” at one point. It has been outperforming the wider cryptocurrency market in the wake of FTX’s collapse, which has seen several platforms including Genesis and BlockFi halt withdrawals.
Meanwhile, Solana’s sell-off has been influenced by the collapse of FTX, as its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was a well-known $SOL supporter. His exchange’s balance sheet revealed that it had significant exposure to the Solana ecosystem, including to several illiquid tokens.
At the time of writing, Litecoin is the 15th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after moving up nearly 17% over the past seven days, and around 11% over the last 24-hour period. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at $67 per token.
Also read: How Long Does it Take to Mine 1 Litecoin?
Solana, on the other hand, has lost around 23.7% of its value over the last seven days and its market capitalization is now little over $4.1 billion. Over the past 24-hour period, $SOL lost around 6% of its value amid a wider market sell-off.
Much like BTC, Litecoin undergoes halving events, in which the coinbase reward for miners who find blocks on the network is halved. Litecoin’s next halving event is expected to occur in August 2023, and will reduce mining rewards from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC. Halving events are seen as bullish, as new supply on the market is halved through them.
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