Litecoin is scheduled to experience its third reduction in mining rewards, known as halving, in the beginning of August. Following the halving, the amount of Litecoin awarded to miners per block will be reduced by 50% from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC.
In anticipation of this event, this cryptocurrency which currently ranks as the 12th largest cryptocurrency by market value, has witnessed significant price increases, pushing its value to $92.58.Furthermore, various indicators related to on-chain activity have shown positive trends.
Surging Network Activity Signals Litecoin’s Resilience
According to data provided by IntoTheBlock, Litecoin had a highly successful month. Starting from the end of April, there has been a significant and notable increase in the total number of addresses holding a balance. As of last week, the count of LTC addresses with a balance reached 8.5 million.
The count of both new addresses and active addresses on the network has been consistently staying near the record levels set in February this year. Interestingly, the creation of new addresses on the Litecoin network momentarily exceeded the creation of new Bitcoin addresses.
Santiment, a crypto-analytics platform, recently stated that if the upward trend in on-chain volume continues, it would indicate significant participation from major investors who are entering this cryptocurrency market in anticipation of the upcoming LTC20 halving on August 10th. This halving event is expected to have a positive impact on the price of Litecoin, a sentiment shared by many experts.
Additionally, LTC’s hash rate, which represents the processing power dedicated to the blockchain, has remained relatively stable. Despite minor fluctuations, the hash rate has increased by over 24% since the beginning of the year, rising from 573 TH/s to the current level of 712 TH/s. Correspondingly, the mining difficulty, closely linked to the hash rate, currently stands at 25.12 million hashes.
Litecoin Futures Experience Remarkable Increase in Open Interest
The impending halving event has had a significant impact on Litecoin’s futures derivatives contracts, causing a global spike of over $420 million. This surge in activity has resulted in a year-to-date growth of over 20%, according to data compiled by Coinglass.
Consequently, the open interest for Litecoin futures has reached its highest level since the start of the previous year. Open interest represents the number of outstanding derivatives contracts that are yet to be settled.