Litecoin Outshines Bitcoin in Payment Usage for Second Consecutive Month

• Litecoin (LTC) has posted record daily transactions as its demand records an uptick for the second consecutive month.
• Litecoin has for a second month overtaken Bitcoin in payment usage, signifying greater popularity.

The Litecoin (LTC) community is once again celebrating toppling Bitcoin in daily transactions. For the second consecutive month, LTC has posted record daily transactions in payment usage, and once again has surpassed Bitcoin (BTC).

In part, this is because Bitcoin investors are anticipating a bullish year, fuelled by the imminent approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF and the April halving. An ETF will usher in billions of dollars into the digital asset, with this expected to drive demand for the token and push it to a new all-time high. Furthermore, the upcoming Bitcoin halving has historically been a bullish event that influences BTC to a new all-time high in the proceeding months.

With these in demand, a majority of investors are hodlign their tokens in anticipation of seeing their value rise.

Data shared by BitPay, the world’s largest payment processor, LTC accounted for about 38.25% in December. This was an increase from November’s 34.52%. Significantly, this was an all-time high record in terms of market share. Its bigger brother Bitcoin, recorded 30.55% in November and further dropped to 23.24% in December. These data show that crypto holders are choosing to spend Litecoin, Bitcoin, and Ethereum in order to buy goods and services.

Litecoin (LTC) Network Activity Surges

In addition to increased daily spending, Litecoin is enjoying an uptick in network activity. Glassnode data shows the daily transactions hit their peak at 1.27 million on the 20th of December. For comparison, Bitcoin (BTC) was unable to reach half this figure. Furthermore, LTC’s transfer volume averaged around $2.7 billion during the month, the highest since July. However, despite the positives around the ecosystem, LTC prices have continued to drag behind.

After great expectations for the “digital silver” in 2023 owing to the LTC halving event in August, this ended up being a disappointing outcome. Data shows that in December, the no.21 ranked crypto asset lost nearly 11%. Despite a temporary bump at the start of the year, LTC has extended the bearish trend.

In the last 7 days, our data shows the altcoin has lost nearly 2% in the last 24 hours to extend its weekly loss to around 13%. At the time of press, the token is trading at $64.22.

Investors remain bullish on the coin due to its popularity. A report by Kaiko titled “Q3 Token Liquidity Rankings” noted that Litecoin was the fifth largest crypto in terms of liquidity within the period under review. Based on the popularity of the coin and the wider bullish sentiments, LTC is poised to reach and surpass $100. In the long term, investors foresee it reaching its all-time high of $410 reached two years ago.