After remaining dormant for the past few months, Litecoin (LTC), the third largest crypto asset that is secured through the legendary proof-of-work (PoW) consensus method, has signaled the onset of its bullish outlook. The mid-cap altcoin, with a fully diluted valuation of about $6.2 billion and a daily average traded volume of around $523 million, has surged over 14 percent in the past two weeks to trade about $73.86 on Friday, October 18, during the early Asian session.
The ongoing rebound for Litecoin price has coincided with a similar move by Bitcoin (BTC), which has teased above $68k recently.
The entire crypto space has been signaling a potential bullish breakout amid the October narrative combined with the notable shift in macroeconomics.
Major Factors Contributing to the Litecoin Price Breakout
Filing of the First Spot LTC ETF
As Coinpedia previously reported, the first spot Litecoin ETF was filed by Canary Capital with the US SEC earlier this week. With the high chance of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, which means the ouster of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, then there is a high chance of the spot LTC ETF getting approved sometime next year.
Worth noting that Litecoin has in the past received tremendous support from institutional investors led by Fidelity Crypto, and Grayscale Investments, among others.
Rising Demand from Retail Investors
According to market and on-chain research by Santiment, the ongoing Litecoin price bullish breakout is majorly attributed to rising demand from both retail and institutional investors.
Specifically, Santiment noted that Litecoin’s on-chain transactions spiked to $3.97 billion on October 17, which was the highest since June 3, 2023.
Continued Network Development
The Litecoin network has continued to grow in the past years to a major crypto project, backed by over 9.2 million holders. As of this writing, the Litecoin network had a total hash rate of 1.31 PH/s and a total mining difficulty of 42.19 M.
Due to its high throughput, low transaction fees, and undisputed security, the Litecoin network has been integrated as a form of payment by dozens of web3, and web2 business projects.
For instance, PayPal-backed Venmo recently partnered with MoonPay to allow 60 million users in the US to buy Litecoin.
