In recent times, Litecoin recorded a massive surge in usage. It became the go-to token for purchases at electronic stores, video games, jewellery stores, and other retail/e-commerce websites. Experts and industry players say Litecoin now competes with Bitcoin (BTC) as the preferred payment coin.
In June 2021, BitPay announced its support for Litecoin. This support, where BitPay users can make payments and purchases using LTC on the platform, remains the biggest driver of the surge. Litecoin's David Schwartz said, "Getting added to BitPay in mid-2021 was a great milestone for LTC and the 'pay with Litecoin' movement.
Furthermore, after 15 months of accepting LTC on BitPay, David Schwartz said the consistent growth of the token usage has validated the stance as a "preferred global payment method." Significantly, Litecoin payments soared by 109% within one year, and the token accounts for more than 25% of all crypto payments on BitPay.
Similarly, BitPay revealed that it had processed more than 180,000 LTC payments totalling about $30 million in sales.
BitPay revealed that North American residents mostly use the token. Similarly, the LTC token has recorded impressive growth worldwide in EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. In addition, Litecoin usage is also prevalent in payment for computer games, electronics, prepaid and gift cards, VPN/hosting, and internet services.
Litecoin's price has risen by 9.76% in the past seven days. The LTC price has increased by 8.19% in the last 24 hours, trading at $82.50 per token. However, Litecoin is 80% below its all-time high of $410.76.
The foremost reason for the rise in LTC usage is speed. The developers designed it as a faster alternative to Bitcoin. So since crypto users realized that it is a faster alternative to BTC, they have diverted their investments to it. Similarly, Litecoin transactions get processed faster than Bitcoin transactions.
Furthermore, the low transaction fee cost when using LTC payment has endeared it to crypto users and investors. Internal BitPay data reveals that the average fee on a Litecoin payment is less than $0.01 compared to Bitcoin. Significantly, Bitcoin's average miner fee on a payment stands at $0.30.
Conclusively, the most popular multi-chain wallets accept the token for payment. Some wallets that acknowledge LTC payment include BitPay wallet, Trust Wallet, Exodus wallet, Atomic wallet, and Huobi. Significantly, BitPay (alone) has connected thousands of merchants to Litecoin users and the network.
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