Gemini Exchange Adds Litecoin Trading

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Gemini Exchange Adds Litecoin Trading

By Benson Toti - min read
Updated 21 March 2023
The Winklevoss twins
The Winklevoss twins

Litecoin is the newest tradable asset added on Gemini Exchange. Litecoin deposits are already available at press time, and you should be able to buy Litecoin from October 16 onwards. Gemini Exchange has been advancing aggressively in recent months, after several years lagging behind the progress of competitor Coinbase. Today with lower fees and a widening array of assets, Gemini (see Gemini Exchange review) presents a compelling case for new investors.

Why Litecoin and Not Bitcoin Cash?

Gemini users will be aware that Bitcoin Cash was rumoured to be added to Gemini alongside Litecoin. However, due to upcoming Bitcoin Cash forks (all lacking in replay protection), Gemini is delaying the introduction of Bitcoin Cash trading until after the forks. At this point, the health of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem can be more accurately reviewed. Fortunately for Litecoin traders, LTC’s Gemini introduction has not been delayed.

Litecoin is a natural choice for Gemini exchange. As the Winklevoss twins (founders of Gemini exchange) both had Bitcoin holdings at the time of the fork, they no doubt have an impressive balance of Litecoin tucked away. So do many Gemini users, since many will have owned Bitcoin at the time of the 2011 Litecoin hard fork (Gemini was founded in 2014).

Litecoin is the world’s 7th most traded cryptocurrency, behind Stellar Lumens XLM and ahead of Tether USDT. Litecoin is often called the digital silver to Bitcoin’s digital gold. During Bitcoin’s slowest and most expensive moments last year, Litecoin acted as a kind of fast lane for Bitcoin traffic, facilitating payments that would have been delayed had they been performed on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Litecoin continues to serve as a “sure thing” for Bitcoin users wishing to make purchases and transactions without the chance of delays or high fees. Though not as widely used as Bitcoin, Litecoin’s 8-megabyte blocks and early adoption of Segregated Witness technology (SegWit) make it a remarkably faster, though not as popularly adopted, alternative to BTC.

Litecoin’s future has been somewhat murky in recent days. Founder Charlie Lee has been quick to insist that updates are steady in the Litecoin ecosystem, and that the project is not slowly going defunct as is sometimes claimed. The addition on this high profile exchange indicates that this perspective is true.

What Does the Future Hold for Litecoin Prices?

litecoin prices may rise
The Gemini listing likely will not make much of a difference for Litecoin prices on its own

There are several paths Litecoin might travel. In a worst case, the well known digital currency may grow irrelevant. Bitcoin’s Lightning Network could erase all speed and fee difficulties, and Litecoin could simply lose its edge.

More likely, Litecoin will continue to be useful in a variety of scenarios. True, there are few places where Litecoin can be spent where you couldn’t simply use Bitcoin instead, but Bitcoin has not solved its central problems just yet, giving Litecoin plenty of room to operate and even grow.

It’s even possible that Bitcoin will not be able to fix its problems, and that one or more alternative cryptocurrencies will surpass it in terms of trading volume and daily use. If that happens, the crypto markets would be turned upside down, but Litecoin would be well positioned to take over.

Whatever the future holds, Litecoin users have great reason to hodl!

(*Information in this article should not be taken as investment advice.)

 

Featured image source: Flickr