Litecoin defies market downturn, up 1% today

Litecoin (LTC) has gained close to 1.5% in the last 24 hours, pushing its market capitalization up to a respectable $4.6 billion. The cryptocurrency is now up just over 1% for the week.

Today's gains continue a three-week-long uptrend, which has seen Litecoin grow from under $65 up to its current value of $73.64. Like most major cryptocurrencies, LTC has witnessed significant gains since the start of the year, and is up more than 140% since January.

But it's not all good news. Litecoin pumped to highs of $145 in the middle of this year and has been slowly declining since–bar the recent uptick.

Similarly, Litecoin has seen its hashrate drop off a cliff following the Litecoin halving on August 4. The hashrate is the amount of computing power mining new coins and helping to protect the network from attacks. Currently, it's sitting at just 323 TH/s, this is down by almost 40% since its July 2019 peak. Should the Litecoin hashrate fall by a further 1%, it will be lower than its 2018 peak—a worrying sign.

Ignoring stablecoins, Litecoin is the only cryptocurrency in the top 10 by market capitalization to be in the green today—while the others are experiencing losses of up to 3.5%.

Part of this growth may be owed to news that the Litecoin Foundation has allocated a significant sum of its Litecoin holdings to lending platform Celsius Network, so it can receive up to 10.53% interest on the Litecoin deposits. This would help to keep the foundation funded, ensuring it can keep promoting the coin for a longer time. Or, it may just be the mystical movements of the markets.