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As the wider crypto world continues to battle the ongoing fallout from the spectacular collapse of the FTX exchange, not to mention the immense contagion that would result if the Digital Currency Group (DCG) goes under, Litecoin (LTC) is likely to serve as a relatively robust safe haven in 2023, owing to the cryptocurrency’s halving event scheduled for later this year.
For the uninitiated, Litecoin is now the second major cryptocurrency after Bitcoin to still use a Proof-of-Work (PoW) transaction authentication mechanism. Bear in mind that Ethereum switched to a Proof-of-Stake mechanism last year. Under a PoW paradigm, miners compete with each other by performing cryptographic computations in order to win the right to authenticate a given transaction and incorporate it into the blockchain. For this service, miners are awarded a specific reward of 12.5 LTC per block. After the halving event in August 2023, Litecoin’s mining reward will be cut in half to 6.25 LTC.
1.$LTC tends to rally quite strongly prior to its Halving
Prior to Halving 1, #LTC bottomed 122 days and rallied +820%
Prior to Halving 2, LTC bottomed 243 days and rallied +550%#BTC #Crypto #Litecoin pic.twitter.com/x5IP4N6LUH
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 8, 2023
According to Rekt Capital, Litecoin bottomed 122 days prior to its first halving, rallying 820 percent heading into the event. Thereafter, LTC registered gains of 14,200 percent.
2.
On the other hand, how much does $LTC rally AFTER its Halving?
After Halving 1, #LTC rallied +14200%
After Halving 2, LTC rallied +1574%
Therefore, a key historical tendency emerges:
• LTC tends to rally more post-Halving compared to pre-Halving#BTC #Crypto #Litecoin pic.twitter.com/3L1gycttS1
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 8, 2023
Similarly, Litecoin bottomed 243 days ahead of its second halving, registering gains of 550 percent heading into the event. Thereafter, Litecoin clocked in further gains of 1,574 percent. Interestingly, unlike Bitcoin, Litecoin registers most of its halving-related gains only after the seminal event has passed.
8.
There is confluence for an early/mid-Q2 $LTC Pre-Halving top
But how much could #LTC rally ahead of its August 2023 Halving?
Pre-Halving return may be declining
But is it declining by +269% each time?
If so LTC could rally up to +285% before August 2023#Crypto #Litecoin pic.twitter.com/bxjl2yiuYD
— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 8, 2023
While taking other factors into account, Rekt Capital believes that Litecoin can rally by around 285 percent before August 2023. Thereafter, the cryptocurrency is likely to register a 60 percent retracement and enter a consolidation period, which would set the stage for new all-time highs in 2024.
For obvious reasons, should this prognostication pan out, Litecoin will have exhibited extraordinary resilience over the next few weeks and months, even as the wider crypto sphere continues to plod from one crisis to another. On a macroeconomic level, a possible recession in the US and the EU remains the most troubling headwind for risky assets, including cryptocurrencies.
On the intrinsic front, Binance’s collapse and Digital Currency Group’s bankruptcy are the leading possible downward catalysts. As a refresher, Digital Currency Group owns five major companies: CoinDesk, the crypto mining equipment retailer Foundry, the crypto brokerage firm Genesis, the digital assets exchange Luno, and Grayscale Investments, the company behind the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The decision of Genesis Trading to freeze $900 million in funds belonging to Gemini has already resulted in quite a lot of consternation as well as a public spat between the co-founder of Gemini, Cameron Winklevoss, and DCG’s CEO, Barry Silbert. When FTX went under, Genesis’ funds on the exchange were frozen, resulting in acute liquidity problems for the company. Moreover, the GBTC continues to trade at a substantial discount to the spot price of Bitcoin. This is because, at present, GBTC shares can only be created and not redeemed. This means that investors can only unload their shares in the open market, resulting in an increasing discount in the current environment where there is no viable way to rebalance the Grayscale Trust. In this environment, Litecoin’s halving-related intrinsic tailwind can act as an anchor for the wider crypto sphere.
