Litecoin price analysis: LTC/USD defies gravity ahead of halving tests area above $140.00

Litecoin remains the best performing cryptocurrency out of top-20.  The 5th largest asset with the current market capitalization of $8.5 billion has gained over 22% since the beginning of the week and hit the area above $140.00 for the first time since the end of May 2018. In recent 24 hours, the coin’s price grew by nearly 8%, while an average daily trading volume jumped to $5,6 billion.

The steady growth of Litecoin is driven by the upcoming halving that will reduce the reward Litecoin miners receive in exchange for maintaining the network operability. Meanwhile, the head and the creator of the project, Charlie Lee published some stats to demonstrate the community that mining will still be profitable even after the halving. 

“After halving, miners are still profitable with electricity under 10¢. Many are paying only 5¢ and therefore should keep mining LTC post-halving,” he said on Twitter.

Litecoin’s technical picture

From the long-term perspective, a sustainable move above $110.00 handle (23.6% Fobo retracement for a significant downside move from December 2017 high) has improved the technical picture significantly and opened up the way towards the next major barrier created by 38.2% Fibo retracement at $160.00.

While the further upside ahead of halving looks possible, the short-term traders should be wary of possible downside corrections as the coin is heavily overbought on all timeframes including weekly. Initial support for LTC is created by a confluence of SMA50 (Simple Moving Average) and SMA100 on 4-hour timeframe at $115.00. Once it is cleared, the downside is likely to gain traction with the next focus on $110.00.

LTC/USD, 1-day chart