Litecoin price hits record, up nearly 1400% this year

Litecoin, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by value and rival to bitcoin, has rallied nearly 1,400 percent since the start of the year after hitting a record high price.

On Monday, litecoin hit an all-time high of $64.2, marking a 1383% rise since January first where it traded at $4.33, data from industry website Coinmarketcap.com showed. The price pulled back slightly on Tuesday and was just above $62 in early trade.

Litecoin is a cryptocurrency founded by Charlie Lee. It has a market capitalization of around $3.28 billion according to Coinmarketcap.com. This makes it the fifth-biggest digital currency behind ripple, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and bitcoin, which is the largest with a market cap of $72.4 billion.

Like bitcoin, it runs on a blockchain, which is a public ledger of transactions that can't be tampered with.

Litecoin surpassed the $50 mark for the first time in August due to its compatibility with bitcoin as a result of its Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation and its hedge-like characteristics to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Bitcoin analyst and investor Tuur Demeester recently described Litecoin as a bitcoin hedge because of its SegWit-enabled network and transactions. He said that the sell-off of BCH was likely to cause Litecoin price to surge.

Another key factor is SegWit’s activation in the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin Core development team’s SegWit, which works a transaction malleability fix and scaling solution, was adopted by Litecoin in July. Litecoin’s implementation of SegWit ultimately encouraged the bitcoin industry and community to integrate SegWit in the main bitcoin network.

Litecoin also received a boost in June when BitGo, the leading multi-signature technology-based service provider that works with some of the largest bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms, began to support Litecoin and provide security services for the Litecoin platforms.