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Liquidation Quandary: Litecoin Wallets Draining Fast – What’s Next For LTC Prices?

Litecoin (LTC) suffered a major fall after a week of consistent growth, posing possible difficulties going forward. According to recent data, a significant proportion of wallets have sold their Bitcoin holdings.

As of this writing, LTC is trading at $74.60, down 1.1% from its peak price over the previous day. This decline has also had an effect on LTC’s market capitalization.

With Litecoin’s market value falling by 55% compared to Bitcoin in just five months, the price chart for LTC presents a bleak image. This sharp decline in value is indicative of investors’ diminishing trust as they choose to sell off more and more of their holdings.

Litecoin Downturn: Small Investors Flee, Raising Long-Term Viability Concerns

Santiment claims that 199,000 wallets that contained Litecoin around 10 days ago are no longer in possession of the cryptocurrency. This pattern could explain why, in comparison to other prominent cryptocurrencies previously discussed, the coin has performed comparatively poorly over the last week and year.

Interestingly, small-scale holders account for the majority of the wallets that collapse, which contrasts with the tenacity exhibited by Sharks and Whales in the cryptocurrency space, according to Santiment.

It seems that small investors—who are frequently the most susceptible to market swings—are the main group selling their holdings, presumably because they are worried about the investments’ long-term sustainability and liquidity.

The significant departure of almost 199,000 wallets that previously contained LTC is a noteworthy phenomena that should not be disregarded. The significant decline in selling activity reflects a more widespread feeling of apprehension, uncertainty, and skepticism that has negatively impacted the asset.

Up to 2.13% of all Litecoin wallets have sold off their LTC since late November, according to the most recent data. On the Litecoin network, at least 9.11 million addresses now hold zero coins.

As some of the top cryptocurrencies have experienced incredible price increases—gaining over 100% in the year thus far—Litecoin has remained relatively stable, showing a growth of less than 4% year to date.

For about two weeks, the price of LTC has been consistently fluctuating between $70 and $75. In the second half of the month, there was a narrow trading range between $68 and $72.

LTC’s Resilience: Navigating Liquidation In Leveraged Trading

In order to forcefully end a trader’s leveraged position once a trader loses all or a portion of their initial margin, the exchange uses a process known as liquidation. It occurs when a trader doesn’t have enough money to maintain an open position in a leveraged position, or can’t meet the margin requirements for the position.

LTC maintained a high trading volume even as its price went sideways. Additionally, its MVRV ratio was higher, which is often an indication of good health.

However, even with a decline, its Relative Strength Index (RSI) stayed over the neutral threshold of 50. By doing this, the coin may be able to satisfy investors and continue its bull run.

Meanwhile, the biggest crypto payment processor in the world, BitPay, now accepts LTC as its preferred coin. Beyond Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [ETH], it has demonstrated its supremacy in practical applications, accounting for 34% of BitPay’s payment count in cryptocurrency.

(This site’s content should not be construed as investment advice. Investing involves risk. When you invest, your capital is subject to risk).

Featured image from Shutterstock

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Leading Video Game Company Embraces XRP As Price Faces Key Resistance

BitPay, the pioneering crypto payment service provider based in Atlanta, Georgia, has taken another significant step in its collaboration with global video game commerce company, Xsolla, by integrating the XRP token. Today, October 17, BitPay announced via X (formerly Twitter): “Xsolla now accepts XRP with BitPay as a payment method for their games, such as SMITE and Roblox. You can use your favorite cryptocurrency to buy, play, and enjoy gaming like never before.”

Why This Announcement Is Important

This announcement not only cements XRP’s growing relevance in the gaming world but also marks a significant moment in the longstanding partnership between Xsolla and BitPay. This relationship first began in 2014 when Xsolla decided to process Bitcoin (BTC) payments for gamers globally via BitPay. They’ve since expanded their crypto payment offerings, with the recent addition of PayPal USD (PYUSD) last month.

Established in 2005 by Aleksandr Agapitov, Xsolla has positioned itself as an instrumental force in the gaming industry, providing essential tools that help game developers launch, monetize, and distribute their creations on a global scale. With Xsolla’s key focus on aiding its partners to break geographical barriers and bolster revenue streams, the company continually seeks innovative solutions to global game distribution challenges.

Roblox, the popular online gaming platform boasting over 65.5 million daily active users and over 202 million monthly active users, stands out as a significant beneficiary of the XRP integration. Managed by Xsolla for in-game payments, Roblox now allows its vast user base to utilize XRP for transactions, with BitPay ensuring a smooth connection with crypto wallets. Given that Roblox users spent an astonishing $780.7 million on in-game purchases in just the second quarter of 2023, the potential volume of XRP transactions on the platform could be monumental.

Remarkably, BitPay’s association with XRP can be traced back to 2019 when they collaborated with Ripple’s investment wing, Xpring. However, the relationship hit a snag when BitPay, in alignment with many US-based crypto enterprises, ceased XRP-related transactions following the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs. The tide turned in favor of XRP when Judge Torres identified it as a non-security, prompting BitPay to reintroduce the cryptocurrency on its platform in August.

XRP Price Faces Stiff Resistance

The recent announcement undoubtedly solidifies XRP’s position in the broader market, showcasing its versatility. However, despite the promising long-term prospects stemming from XRP’s new use case, its price is currently contending with multiple key resistance levels.

Following a brief surge yesterday, attributed to the fake news surrounding a potential spot Bitcoin ETF, XRP’s price experienced a pullback, dipping below the $0.50 mark.

On the 4-hour chart, the price slid beneath the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level, pegged at $0.4908. Yet, it demonstrated resilience, rebounding and securing a close above the 20-EMA. In the more immediate time frame, the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level, set at $0.5048, now emerges as the pivotal resistance. A sustained close above this threshold on the 4-hour chart might be the catalyst for renewed bullish vigor.

Should this momentum be achieved, the next focal point for the XRP price would be the September high of $0.55. Notably, this price benchmark isn’t just crucial for short-term analysis but also holds significance on larger scales, like the 1-day chart, as reported previously.

XRP price

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Dogecoin (DOGE) Is Now 4th Most Popular Cryptocurrency On BitPay

Dogecoin, a dog-themed meme crypto that appears to enjoy strong ties with tech billionaire and Twitter owner Elon Musk, appears to be struggling to gain enough ground for a major upward swing.

After peaking at $0.0749 on January 5, DOGE fell victim to a price retracement that pulled it all the way down to $0.0705 the following day.

Since then, the altcoin launched a mini rally to recoup some of its losses, enabling it to notch a 2.4% increase in value over the last seven days.

According to tracking from Coingecko, at the time of writing, Dogecoin is changing hands at $0.0719 and despite its early struggles this year, it is able to strongly keep its place as the 8th largest cryptocurrency courtesy of its market cap which currently stands at $9.90 billion.

Dogecoin Still Among The More Popular Crypto Assets

Although still far from rewarding its faithful holders with significant profit through a massive price hike, DOGE continues to establish itself as among the well-known digital currencies.

Just recently, BitPay, one of the world’s leading crypto payments processors, revealed that the meme token is the fourth most popular transactional currency in its platform.

According to data shared by the company, in December 2022, Dogecoin accounted for 10% of all transactions it processed, almost doubling the 6% tally it had in June.

The memecoin placed behind Bitcoin (1st, 41.81%), Litecoin (2nd, 25.51%) and Ethereum (3rd, 11.53%).

This development could be interpreted as an indication that more and more people are using the digital asset as a means of exchange.

Along this line, leading Indian cryptocurrency trading app CoinSwitch with more or less 20 million users mentioned in its report that DOGE was included in the list of the most popular virtual currencies owned by its customers.

The Undeniable Musk Effect

As time goes by, it is slowly becoming apparent that Dogecoin might live and fade with the self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk as his social media comments of the memecoin triggers instant price movements.

For example, when the Tesla CEO completed his controversial purchase of social media giant Twitter back in October 2022, DOGE’s price registered a significant uptick, from $0.0720 in October 27 to $0.1572 on November 1.

Months before his acquisition of the company, Musk floated the idea of having Dogecoin accepted as a payment for Twitter’s Blue services. 

-Featured image: Cryptoglobe

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How Litecoin (LTC) Outperforms Other Top Cryptocurrencies In This Department

Litecoin (LTC) seemingly hit a speed bump that caused its bullish run to slow down a bit after it rallied all the way up to the $83 zone on December 5.

The following day, the cryptocurrency closed the trading session with a trading price below the $80 marker before reclaiming said territory on December 7.

Since then, the altcoin has been on a downward trend although it is already showing signs of recovery. In fact, at the time of this writing, according to tracking from Coingecko, Litecoin is changing hands at $78.18.

LTC only managed to go up by 3% during the last 24 hours but it is still enjoying an increase of 36.3% in its value over the last 30 days.

Moreover, the asset, despite its recent price dump, has once again managed to outperform other major cryptocurrencies in other departments.

Litecoin Surpasses Ethereum, Dogecoin, XRP In Transactions

The 13th largest digital currency with a total market cap of $5.60 billion recently emerged as one of the top choices among cryptocurrencies used as a mode of payment for Bitpay.

Specifically, Litecoin accounted for 27.64% of the overall tally of transactions that were being processed by the company’s platform.

Although it failed to supplant Bitcoin in this category after the maiden crypto appeared to have been utilized as payment for 41.62% of Bitpay’s total transactions, LTC still beat the likes of Ethereum (ETH), XRP and Dogecoin (DOGE).

In addition, the altcoin also proved to be profitable for its miners as data shared by CryptoCompare revealed Litecoin mining had an extremely high profitability rate of 58%.

Along this line, its network hash rate also spiked by 3.05% during the last 30 days – a development that suggests that the asset’s blockchain remains strong and healthy.

A Bearish Outlook Looms For Litecoin

After a bear market-defying performance, LTC seems to be headed on a decline that might cause it to lose the gains it had when it increased its price by more than 33% after November 23.

The cryptocurrency experienced rejection when it tested the resistance region of $84.45 as its Relative Strength Index (RSI), which now stands at 38.40, has fallen below the 50-neutral score.

The current state of the above-mentioned technical indicator coupled with its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) which was below zero (-0.06) at the time of this writing indicates the momentum now belongs to sellers.

With that being said, Litecoin appears to be headed for another bearish trajectory and if left to deal with the possibility of a decline all the way down to $70.40.

LTC total market cap at $5.6 billion on the daily chart | Featured image – The News Wheel, Chart: TradingView.com

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Google Pay Partners With Cryptocurrency Exchanges To Accept Their Digital Cards

Another day, another massive company entering the cryptocurrency space. Google is making moves to boost up the profile of their Google Pay service, and, of course, crypto is in the mix. The company hired Arnold Goldberg, ex-Senior Vice President at PayPal, “to run its payments division.” That’s according to Bloomberg, who broke the story. 

“The move is part of a broader strategy to team up with a wider range of financial services, including cryptocurrencies, said Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce. The business, known for the Google Pay system and mobile wallet, has largely avoided the crypto industry.”

Related Reading | Bitcoin Still Overtook Trump, VISA, PayPal, and Libra on Google Search in 2019

Until now, that is. The company is cautiously entering the cryptocurrency space and NewsBTC is here to tell you what you should know about it.

Google’s Many Failures

The company’s financial division hasn’t been the most successful. Their Google Pay service is far behind its competitors, and facing a crowded space with many players trying to get ahead. Recently, Alphabet Inc. partnered with 11 banks for an initiative called Plex, and canceled everything at the last second. “We’re not a bank — we have no intention of being a bank,” said the company’s president of commerce Bill Ready in a recent interview.

On the other hand, the company has a lot going for it: 

“Google does have enormous consumer reach and a huge balance sheet. The technology giant takes no fees on transactions with its mobile wallet, and Ready said there are no plans to change that.”

Alphabet Inc. price chart on Nasdaq | Source: TradingView.com
What Will The Company’s Crypto Play Consist Of?

Let’s be clear about this, the technology giant is only testing the waters. They haven’t announced anything crazy, nor are they developing technology themselves. Still, it’s a great improvement from their “largely avoided the crypto industry” policy. What are they doing, exactly?

“Google has partnered with companies, including Coinbase Global Inc. and BitPay Inc., to store crypto assets in digital cards, while still having users pay in traditional currencies. Ready said Google is looking to do more of these partnership, though the company still isn’t accepting crypto for transactions.”

Since that’s a little vague, Yahoo! Finance elaborates on the matter:

“Late last year crypto platform Bakkt said its virtual Visa debit card would be available for use on Google Pay online and in stores. Bakkt’s Google Pay support follows in the footsteps of Coinbase, which rolled out support for Apple Pay and Google Pay for its Coinbase Cards earlier this year. Google is also working with Bitpay and Gemini to support their crypto cards, meaning that people who use these cards can add them to Google Pay.”

To further emphasize the lightness of the company’s crypto play, Bill Ready told Bloomberg:

“Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to. As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.”

How Did The Market React To Google ‘s Announcement?

As soon as the article went live and the news started spreading through the Internet, both Bitcoin and Ethereum’s prices spiked for a little while. Then, as people read exactly what Google announced, the excitement wore off. The two leading cryptocurrencies have been trading horizontally, lightly trending downwards for a while. And this announcement wasn’t strong enough to change that.

Related Reading | Coinbase Adds Option To Buy Crypto With Apple Pay, Google Pay To Follow

Maybe it should’ve been, though.

Featured Image by PhotoMIX-Company on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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Altcoins Are Encroaching On Bitcoin’s Dominance On Digital Payments

Bitcoin has dominated the digital payments space for the longest time and continues to do so. However, this dominance is on the decline as more altcoins are being chosen as the preferred digital currencies for payments. This has mainly been due to cheaper fees resulting from network congestion when the price gets too high. Instead, cryptocurrencies whose fees can range from a few cents to fractions of a cent are now favored by merchants.

Altcoins Are Taking Market Share From Bitcoin

Crypto payments processor BitPay recently released a report outlining the percentages each crypto commanded in the crypto payments space. As expected, Bitcoin dominated the list but what was important to note from the report was how much the pioneer cryptocurrency’s dominance over this space dropped in the space of a year. Between 2020 and 2021, bitcoin lost about 27% dominance.

Related Reading | Why Sovereign Nation States May Begin Acquiring Bitcoin In 2022

Back in 2020, the company had reported that bitcoin made up for 92% of all digital payments being carried out on the platform. In 2021, this number was at 65% and is expected to continue to drop as merchants move to altcoins for payments.

Bitcoin market dominance down below 40% | Source: Market Cap BTC Dominance on TradingView.com

 

The use of Ethereum as a payment method was up, accounting for 15% of the total transactions carried out on the platform. Stablecoins made a big splash with 13% of all transactions.

Meme coins, which grew to popularity within this time and were added by the payments processor amid rising demand, made up a small but impressive percentage of all transactions. Dogecoin and rival Shiba Inu, alongside Litecoin, accounted for 3% of digital payments processed by BitPay for the year.

Stablecoins On The Rise

One of the factors that affect how much users are paying with cryptocurrencies has been the fluctuations in price. For Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, when the price of the digital asset moves up, the frequency in which it is being used as a method of payment increases drastically. And vice versa during the bear markets.

But with stablecoins, whose values more or less remain the same through bull and bear markets, merchants are able to eliminate this problem. BitPay noted that the use of stablecoins as a method of payment when using digital currencies has gone up tremendously.

Related Reading | What’s In Store For MicroStrategy Going Forward? CEO Michael Saylor Reveals

However, the tide seems to be changing when it comes to the correlation between bull/bear markets and how much users are spending their cryptocurrencies. CEO and founder of BitPay, Stephen Pair, stated that the recent pullback in crypto prices has not affected payments as much as it did in previous markets.

“We have not experienced as much of a decline in volume with this recent pullback,” Paid said. “It’s probably just a reflection of more and more companies that need to use this as a tool to conduct payments”

The company which processes around 66,000 transactions a month is one of the largest crypto payments processors on the globe. It processes crypto transactions for prominent companies such as AMC Theaters and the Dallas Mavericks.

Featured image from Ethereum World News, chart from TradingView.com

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Paypal Loses AMC Theaters Throne, Bitpay Will Support Shiba Inu Payments

AMC Theather, the largest movie theater company in the world, announced that they will be accepting Shiba Inu (SHIB) as a payment method through Bitpay, becoming their first client to do so.

The company has been working on accepting diverse cryptocurrencies as payment methods for a while and now offers to do so through PayPal, which allows payments in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Lietcoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

However, AMC is also interested in accepting the meme cryptocurrencies Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) because of the remarkable popularity both showed on Twitter during polls made by the theater chain CEO Adam Aron.

When CEO Adam Aron conducted the last Twitter poll, Shiba Inu got 124,623 votes in favor, which takes us to this new announcement in which Shiba Inu shares its spotlight with Bitpay. In about 3 months PayPal will cease to be the only payment method that supports cryptocurrencies on the AMC website.

Related Reading | AMC Theaters Considers Accepting Shiba Inu As Payment Amid Growing Interest

Bitpay, as a payment method for the theater chain, does not only allow more cryptos as options -a great marketing strategy for AMC-, but it also emphasizes Paypal limitations with only four crypto coins and services that lack many great features offered by actual crypto wallets.

SHIB price at $0.00004960 in the daily chart | Source: SHIBUSD on TradingView.com
PayPal Gives Fake Numbers As Crypto, Users Say

At the beginning of the year, Paypal launched a new service enabling its customers to “buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal account”. Ever since, they reported a 22% yearly increase of active accounts in Q3, now having 361 million users.

For Paypal, this seems to have worked as a rewarding marketing strategy, since the main intention was to attract clients that might stay for other features.

However, Paypal does not provide its users with a crypto wallet and there are no private keys. The crypto bought in PayPal can mostly be useful inside its retail network.

Essentially, what the platform does is hold the user’s cryptocurrencies on its behalf, but does not provide them with a real one. Using Paypal also implies no anonymity and limited options to use the funds, which, for many, defeats the purpose of crypto.

Back to when the company made the announcement, many Reddit users described the feature as something that gives “fake numbers as crypto”, stating that this is not an intent of adoption of crypto, but the monopolization of it, and if the mainstream adoption of crypto were to follow this path, it would not be different as “the banks holding all the money”.

One user suggested that PayPal “will simply let people think they are using Bitcoin when they’re really not, and then use the blockchain as a settlement layer. And then we’re right back in a central bank dystopia.”

PayPal expanded this feature towards Venmo. A spokesperson shared with Bloomberg  that offering crypto is “part of Venmo’s continued evolution from a peer-to-peer payments app to a more holistic offering that our customers rely on in their everyday financial lives.”

Related Reading | PayPal Co-founder Peter Thiel Admits He Underinvested In Bitcoin

PayPal Vs. Bitpay

PayPal’s crypto announcements did have some highlights, as its already wide platforms could increase the public’s acceptance of major coins. Some even thought that it could also increase their value, and saw the possibility for the company to allow withdrawals of coins eventually.

However, BitPay crypto-related features are not only better, but truer to crypto ideals. Users claim Bitcoin transfers from other wallets to BitPay are easy, it allows payments from anywhere, Bitcoin can be directly transferred into a debit card or exchanged for other currencies. Creating a Bitcoin wallet in the platform allows the user to spend the coin anywhere by offering to turn it into dollars.

Non-custodial wallets, such as BitPay’s, are described as decentralized because the customer gets to own its private keys and has total control over their funds, opposingly to PayPal’s service.

The rating for user satisfaction between the two platforms reads BitPay (100%) vs. PayPal (97%) according to FinancesOnline. Now being under the eye of AMC’s huge customer base and SHIB’s enthusiasts, will BitPay be overshadowing PayPal as a payment method?