Litecoin (LTC) may not be competing with Bitcoin, but there is at least some attempt to boast better performance compared to Bitcoin Cash. Now, the Abra service has also picked Litecoin as one of the digital assets for its new portfolio-wallet.
But the true popularization that Litecoin aims for is the spending of the asset. The #PayWithLitecoin hashtag is getting more populated. But the Litepay service is still months away from arriving, and a Litecoin-based dedicated card may not be available for a while.
The price of Litecoin has moved down from recent peaks, but remains relatively stable at $163.22, after the latest market shakedown. Litecoin has recovered and is 4.9% higher in the past 24 hours, and the net loss since last week is just 2.35%. Litecoin has had periods of stability before, making the coin one of the better assets for spending.
At the same time, the project is preparing another update to further lower network fees:
3rd and last bit of good news today: we have just tagged Litecoin Core 0.16rc1. once we have tested it enough, it will be released. https://t.co/DRehB5bRJu
— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) March 16, 2018
0.16 includes native SetWit Bech32 support and lower fees. 🎆
* Litecoin Core is the reference wallet, not a coin fork. 😀 pic.twitter.com/opl7zey9Yx
What Litecoin Does for Abra
Besides being added as an investment opportunity in the Abra portfolio, Litecoin is in fact at the core of the app's protocol. Abra allows users to buy synthetic digital currencies - centralized tokens, which however are backed by existing assets. Abra has sold USD, EUR and other fiat currency derivatives.
"Abra has developed a unique multi-sig smart contract-based investment platform that allows us to create synthetic digital assets (e.g. stablecoins) based on Litecoin or Bitcoin," announced the company.
But now, the app has added Bitcoin and Litecoin as the backbone of the app. Based on smart contracts on the Bitcoin and Litecoin blockchains, Abra generates its synthetic tokens.
And while Abra is offering 20 new digital coins, the only ones embedded in the app with their actual blockchains are Bitcoin and Litecoin. The rest of the coins achieve the seamless, instant exchange only because they are "synthetic coins", just the image of blockchain-based assets.
So owning coins on the Abra app is different than storing them in a private-key wallet. But still, there is extra security offered by the Litecoin blockchain.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest