Why is the BTC/LTC price changing so much

[CADguy]

anyone have any idea why btc is dropping so much in relation to LTC, its practically double in the last 24hrs...??

edit: as in is there a specific reason that you can think of, no just "well people want ltc more"

[humanitee]

Hype.

[Odrec]

I'm waiting for my 16 ltc to become valuable enough to buy 1 or 2 bitcoins. Right now they are 0.52

[Hawker]

Both have market values that reflect sentiment and right now there is a lot of hysteria so you'd expect the prices to be all over the place.

[KFR]

Well, for one thing, hedging is always sound strategy. 

Bitcoin is still extremely undervalued.  Some people believe Litecoin to be slightly more undervalued than Bitcoin is - it's one of the very few viable alternatives/competitors/complements to BTC that features important technological distinctions.  So Litecoin is catching up a little.  Altcoins have a bad reputation because most of them are indeed pump-and-dump junk or naive tweaks without the balancing act brilliance that underpins BTC.  But one or two of them may just have a very exciting future of their own to look forward to.

[CADguy]

Well, for one thing, hedging is always sound strategy. 

Bitcoin is still extremely undervalued.  Some people believe Litecoin to be slightly more undervalued than Bitcoin is - it's one of the very few viable alternatives/competitors/complements to BTC that features important technological distinctions.  So Litecoin is catching up a little.  Altcoins have a bad reputation because most of them are indeed pump-and-dump junk or naive tweaks without the balancing act brilliance that underpins BTC.  But one or two of them may just have a very exciting future of their own to look forward to.

seems logical enough thanks for the explanation


do you think btc will one day be the "gold" of digital currency and ltc as the "silver" 

[KFR]

With the best will in the world I think those two analogies are over-simplistic.  In the context of investment, silver and gold don't fundamentally differ from each other - cue PM junkie rage.  Litecoin and Bitcoin have slightly different architectures and therefore each represents a fundamentally different technological profile of resistances, vulnerabilities and opportunities.

Nobody can predict the future.  I think the real trick is being honest with yourself that nobody knows how this will all pan out and the best you can hope to do is research thoroughly and cover your options as best you can.

[Davyd05]

many will say ltc is being pumped via hedging of bears or people who invest 1,000 feeling like 500 ltc 2 months ago was even safer then 140 buyin of BTC. Maybe late adopters see it going even higher.. but alot of it is speculation due to less infrastructure pos system and such. Not that the gap can't be filled.

[byronbb]

Well, for one thing, hedging is always sound strategy. 

Bitcoin is still extremely undervalued.  Some people believe Litecoin to be slightly more undervalued than Bitcoin is - it's one of the very few viable alternatives/competitors/complements to BTC that features important technological distinctions.  So Litecoin is catching up a little.  Altcoins have a bad reputation because most of them are indeed pump-and-dump junk or naive tweaks without the balancing act brilliance that underpins BTC.  But one or two of them may just have a very exciting future of their own to look forward to.

seems logical enough thanks for the explanation


do you think btc will one day be the "gold" of digital currency and ltc as the "silver" 

Well LTC is $34 and BTC is $1050....Silver is $20 an oz and Gold $1200....So it basically is.

Chodpapa put the ratio at 1/(e^4) or 0.018, perhaps he was wrong, or perhaps a huge correction is imminent. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=259385.msg2789856#msg2789856. Litecoin has no shorting mechanism at all, and binfinex doesn't count. I wish i had gotten into LTC having forseen the psychological narrative of "buying the cheaper one", but I was too chicken.

[zeraTunerse]

anyone have any idea why btc is dropping so much in relation to LTC, its practically double in the last 24hrs...??

edit: as in is there a specific reason that you can think of, no just "well people want ltc more"

I believe because many started talking about Litecoins even outside Alternative currency section where these Litecoin discussions belong 

[kpy90]

anyone have any idea why btc is dropping so much in relation to LTC, its practically double in the last 24hrs...??

edit: as in is there a specific reason that you can think of, no just "well people want ltc more"

Beats me, but it makes me glad I got in with BTC when the BTC/LTC rate was at record lows

[CMMPro]

Litecoin is a pump and dump, primarily due to BTC-E and it's famous troll-box...when Fonta's and crew are done screwing all the newbie investors it will crash back to earth.

[Sharky444]

I think this is related to the upcoming scrypt asics.

[RationalSpeculator]

This litecoin shit makes no sense to me, the market cap is now approaching 10% the market cap of bitcoin. I have heard litecoin supporters blather a million times why litcoin should have value, but I still don't see it. Why not just use bitcoin? The faster confirmation shit is flat out deception. I suppose this litecoin rally could simply be a manifestation of humanity's psychological and logical weakness with regard to integer unit prices ($900 is too "expensive", $30 is so much more "reasonable"... Sigh).  But markets can only up put with the collective stupidity of humans for so long. Reality always comes back, it is just a question of when. I would be very very surprised if there was not a heavy correction in the LTC/BTC rate soon.

I feel your fear. I took some insurance against that Litecon threat after having felt the same fear when it did the same crazy rally half a year back.

The problem I see is that the irrationality in buying Litecoin may actually become a self fulfilling prophecy.

The higher it goes, the more people start to accept it, the more start to mine it, and the more start to buy it.  

Trow in some infighting or unexpected screw up for bitcoin, and before you know it litecoin is bigger as bitcoin and you missed out.

So I would say, take some small insurance now, accept the premium as a punishment for not having thought about fire insurance before the fire broke out, and if it corrects take a decent insurance.

I'll sell you some This insurance business is awesome! 

[rocks]

Atl coins that provide no new value over bitcoin, but are simple copies, IMHO are the biggest threat to bitcoin in general. I have a ready response to all the doubters questions except for the proliferation of alt coins...

[RationalSpeculator]

Atl coins that provide no new value over bitcoin, but are simple copies, IMHO are the biggest threat to bitcoin in general. I have a ready response to all the doubters questions except for the proliferation of alt coins...

I think they do offer some value as a backup for bitcoin, a distractor for authorities and people who would like to see bitcoin die, and one day a superior altcoin than bitcoin may emerge.

I understand your fear but I think that no altcoin will take away value from bitcoin as long as bitcoin remains superior. The competition is good to put the pressure on the bitcoin dev team not to screw up.

[Coinseeker]

Atl coins that provide no new value over bitcoin, but are simple copies, IMHO are the biggest threat to bitcoin in general. I have a ready response to all the doubters questions except for the proliferation of alt coins...

The only threat to Bitcoin is a better currency.  If Bitcoin is indeed "better", let it prove it over the course of history.  Anything else is subjective BS.  What matters is that math based currencies find good roots.  The "brand" name is irrelevant to solving global monetary issues. 

[shmadz]

This litecoin shit makes no sense to me, the market cap is now approaching 10% the market cap of bitcoin. I have heard litecoin supporters blather a million times why litcoin should have value, but I still don't see it. Why not just use bitcoin? The faster confirmation shit is flat out deception. I suppose this litecoin rally could simply be a manifestation of humanity's psychological and logical weakness with regard to integer unit prices ($900 is too "expensive", $30 is so much more "reasonable"... Sigh).  But markets can only up put with the collective stupidity of humans for so long. Reality always comes back, it is just a question of when. I would be very very surprised if there was not a heavy correction in the LTC/BTC rate soon.

I can't try to make sense of it, but I can tell you my personal thoughts.

If bitcoin is the only payment method, how are you gonna pay for your coffee? a couple satoshis? what about the change? the transaction fee?

As far as I know, dust transactions are already a problem and we're only like what? 4-5 years into this beta project? I'm not so sure the bitcoin network can handle billions of micro-transactions of 2 or 3 satoshis every few seconds around the globe.

I think bitcoin will be the money of nations (like gold) and litecoin will be the money of gentlemen (like silver)

*edit* - also, I don't think 1 monetary system to rule them all is very healthy, kinda goes away from the decentralized idea for me philosophically. I think I would prefer a world with many competing currencies.

[Syke]

It is trivial to increase the divisibility of bitcoin. And litecoin is not a solution to bitcoin scaling issues. If bitcoin can't scale and fails, then so does litecoin.

Yup, litecoin is actually less scalable. More blocks means more overhead.

An altcoin that can handle fast microtransactions will come about sooner or later.

[lnternet]

Yup, litecoin is actually less scalable. More blocks means more overhead.

Can you explain this / link to something that may explain it? I don't see how scalability is related to block generation speed at all.