Litecoin blasts past $100 amid surging hash rate, upcoming 'halving'
Quick Take
- Litecoin is trading at $102, spiking 20% over the last 24 hours.
- It’s up 45% year-to-date.
- The price surge coincides with Litecoin’s hash rate hovering just short of an all-time high.
Litecoin surged past the $100 mark on Friday, buoyed by a soaring hash rate and mounting anticipation of the next approaching "halving" event.
Often dubbed as "digital silver’" to bitcoin "digital gold," LTC is trading at $102 at the time of writing, rising nearly 20% over the past 24 hours, per trading data. Its price has increased about 45% year-to-date.
The gains have followed a rising hash rate, a metric used to measure the computational power devoted to the Litecoin blockchain. According to BitInfoCharts, that rate has seen a near twofold increase over the last year, peaking at a high of 797.5 Terahashes per second on Tuesday. Currently, it stands at around 758 Th/s.
The upcoming halving event
The price action is also occurring as the Litecoin community is getting ready for the next "halving" event set to take place on August 5.
RELATED INDICES
Halving events, a characteristic of many proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, reduce the rate of new coin issuance by 50%, effectively decelerating the pace at which new tokens enter the market. Such events are frequently discussed alongside rising prices, with basic supply and demand principles seen driving potential gains.
LTC-USDT price chart on Binance | Source: TradingView
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