Bitcoin (BTC) and the rest of the cryptocurrency market may be having a bit of a mixed day, but one increasingly popular coin has not let that hold it back.
In afternoon trade the Litecoin (LTC) price is the standout performer in the cryptocurrency market once again.
At the time of writing, Litecoin is up 10% over the last 24 hours to US$228.46 per coin, giving it a market capitalisation of almost US$12.7 billion according to Coin Market Cap.
As a comparison, the bitcoin price is down slightly to US$9,747 per coin and the Ripple (XRP) price is off 1.2% to 93.5 U.S. cents during the period.
Litecoin "spin-off", Litecoin Cash (LCC) has performed even worse that bitcoin and Ripple. It is down 10% since this time yesterday to US$4.99. Crypto traders may be ditching the so-called spin-off after it turned out that it had nothing to do with the original coin.
Why is Litecoin higher?
Traders may be feeling bullish on Litecoin's prospects after its founder Charlie Lee made a bold prediction on Twitter early this morning.
According to his tweet, Mr Lee believes that Litecoin will be worth more than Bitcoin Cash (BCH) this year.
Bitcoin Cash currently has a market capitalisation of just over US$20 billion at present, which means Litecoin would have to rise by around 58% from here to overtake it. Alternatively, Bitcoin Cash would have to lose a third of its value.
Judging by its strong move higher today, traders are betting on Litecoin making a move higher, rather than Bitcoin Cash making a move lower.
Should you invest?
Whilst I do think that the launch of the LitePay payment processing technology makes Litecoin an attractive option for businesses, whether it will be enough to make the cryptocurrency the fourth-largest in the world, only time will tell.
