Litecoin Safe Despite Bottomed Hashrate
In crypto news today, Litecoin (LTC) showed a hashrate drop from its highs of more than 500 TH/s to just 150 Th/s. Last August, over 66% of its value got cut. But still, the network’s drastically reduced computing power did not make it weak to a 51% attack. And its low price can’t justify the cost of the attack.
In addition to that, the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency had gone through a tough year. Both of its price and hashrate suffered dreadful declines. And the tight correlation of the LTC to its bigger brother Bitcoin (BTC) means that it took a massive hit once BTC faced its latest bear phase.
The halving of LTC also did not make any help. Litecoin lost nearly 66% of its value since the August event. And such a significant fall in price wiped out the number of miners working on it too. Based on the data in BitInfoCharts, the hashrate of the peer-to-peer cryptocurrency sits around 157 TH/s. And this is a mere shadow of its July hashrate of 523 TH/s.
Aside from that, the 70% drop LTC’s computing power has seen declines in less than five months. And it led a lot to believe it hit its ultimate bottom. And this was because they have seen the same hashrate recorded in December 2018. This is where its price was less than half of its December 4 value. And its recent levels are not that surprising.
In a report on Litecoin.com, with the halved mining rewards, the 150 TH/s hashrate makes a ‘perfect sense.’
The Declining Hashrate of Litecoin
A lot of people believed that Litecoin is on its way for a strong rebound. And this was after forming a double bottom. But others are just wary about the consequences of such a low hashrate. Also, many believe the dropping hash power is making LTC more vulnerable to a 51% attack. They say it is just a matter of time before bad actors will try to manipulate the network.
Moreover, a 51% attack may only happen in proof-of-work protocols. And it is when a single miner, or group of colluding miners (a cartel), collect more hashing power than all other mining participants. Now, if they successfully gained control of over 50% of the total hashing power in a network, the group can then outvote honest miners. After that, they could obtain the power necessary to know which transactions are included in the blockchain.
On the other hand, Litecoin.com reported that the chance of such an attack occurring on Litecoin is minimal. And the network’s Scrypt algorithm would make very little economic sense. The publication described that LTC’s declining price could not cover the remarkably high cost of taking over more than half of the network’s mining power.
Crypto to Replace Fiat Currencies by 2030
Elsewhere, according to recent research from Deutsche Bank, the demand for crypto will rise. And by 2030, digital currencies would eventually replace cash.
In a report, Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid explained that people’s heightened demand for dematerialized means of payment and anonymity might encourage more individuals to digital currencies.
