Litecoin (LTC) price has surged by 15% in the past 24 hours, sparking movement as investors aim to exceed the $100 mark. At the time of writing this article, LTC is trading at $94.11 with a market cap of $6.89 billion, and market observers are focusing on crossing the $100 barrier.
Investor Excitement Over Upcoming Halving
Litecoin has made a strong upward move in the past 15 days, increasing its value by over 40% during this period. The $100 barrier has now psychologically become significant for the LTC price, which has approached it several times since the beginning of the year. Market analysts focus on the popular altcoin’s price, stating that if it exceeds $100, it could reach new highs.
Meanwhile, the dramatic rise in Litecoin is attributed to the halving event expected to take place in mid-August. The upcoming Litecoin halving will reduce the block reward by 50%. The block reward, which is currently 12.5 LTC per mined block, will drop to 6.25 LTC. Therefore, this expectation of a decrease in supply causes a price increase.
Assessments suggest that if the demand remains steady or increases with the decrease in supply, the possibility of LTC breaking the $100 barrier is extremely high. Such a turning point can spread the positive investor sentiment and profits derived from LTC to other cryptocurrencies and trigger a significant rally in the rest of the cryptocurrency market.
Litecoin Hashrate Breaks Record
As the halving event approaches, investor activity on the Litecoin Blockchain is increasing. A week after reaching the all-time high in payment transactions, Litecoin’s hashrate also hit a record high.
There has been a significant increase in Litecoin mining’s hashrate throughout June. Mining difficulty has also increased, implying it’s now harder to find new blocks on the network compared to the past. Miners respond to this by adding more mining devices to increase their chances of finding blocks, which as a result, has increased the hashrate.
According to data provided by CoinWarz, Litecoin’s hashrate, which was 745.71 TH/s at the time of writing, reached an all-time high of 958.36 TH/s on June 28, 2023.
