Is Litecoin really on its way up, or is the hype machine going out of control

As far as cryptocurrencies go, Litecoin [LTC] arguably mastered the art of staying on the fringes and minding its own business. Now, it seems things are changing as LTC’s recent stats and performance have earned it a good amount of attention from the industry.

Go Lite on the drama

That being said, a trader shouldn’t assume that LTC is on a bull run. After all, at press time, the 22nd biggest crypto was trading at $126.30 after rising by 0.70% in the past 24 hours, but falling by 4.31% in the past seven days.

So, if a rallying price isn’t the main attraction here, what is?

One factor could be the efforts of whales. One interval spanning between the end of March and the start of April saw more than 1,500 whale transactions worth more than $100,000 each day. The movements of big players often inspire smaller fish in the sea to follow suit.

What’s more, it seems that investors agreed, since the end of March saw a spike in transaction volumes. Now, investors need to see if this trend continues into April.

However, some traders are convinced that the rise in transaction volumes is worthy of a lot more hype. Short-term and long-term perspectives definitely make a difference.

#Litecoin‘s transaction volume is pretty impressive. Onchain-data from @santimentfeed reveals that transaction volume has remained very high since early December. This is the biggest cluster of entire #ltc history. Something’s going on here! Not a financial advice! pic.twitter.com/mclEG2ZlgF

— Hamid N (@hamidn2020) April 3, 2022

Won’t take the L

The stock-to-flow ratio for Litecoin tells us more about the asset’s value in terms of scarcity and supply. While S2F ratios were mostly moving sideways in early 2022, late March saw a huge spike followed by a hard fall, and then yet another spike. At press time, LTC’s S2F ratio was 43. For context, Bitcoin’s S/F value at press time was 54.4 [463 day cycle].

As you might know, the higher the S2F ratio, the more scarce – and more valuable – the asset can become.

When hash brings home the bacon

Another metric that had traders in a tizzy was Litecoin’s booming hashrate, which many hope will cross its ATH to scale to new heights.  It’s worth noting that the current record stands at around 637.68 TH/s, which happened on 13 July, 2019.