Litecoin (LTC) had to absorb some bad news and negative publicity as the LitePay project unraveled. The expectation of a payment system and card held up the community’s spirits for weeks. Despite the price slide, LTC managed to keep reasonably high levels.
Yet the news of LitePay abandoning the project coincided with another sharp drop in crypto coin prices in general. As Bitcoin slid below $8,000, the price of LTC lost around 11% to $141.46. Because of the general bearish mood on the markets, it is hard to pinpoint the reason for the price drop in LTC.
The LitePay startup, led by Kenneth Asare, is at this point defunct, as the founder is preparing to sell the enterprise. The Litecoin Foundation provided initial funding for the building of a LTC-based payment system. However, Asare contacted the foundation for additional funding, without showing enough transparency or progress. The Foundation refused the funding and abandoned the project.
“We are greatly disheartened that this saga has ended in this way and we apologize for not doing enough due diligence that could have uncovered some of these issues earlier. We are currently working hard to tighten our due diligence practices and ensure that this does not happen again,” wrote the Litecoin Foundation in a recent blog.
As it turned out, the much-touted launch of LitePay at the end of February was just the opening of a signup form for merchants.
But even without the additional payment channel, the usage of LTC relies on a relatively large ecosystem, and transactions remain well ahead in comparison to Bitcoin Cash. LTC is also widely used as a means of withdrawing from exchanges. Litecoin was also listed by Forbes as one of the most popular crypto coin for millennials, mostly due to the Coinbase effect.
Litecoin was recently chosen as the platform to host the smart contract for the Abra app. The popular payment and trading app added 20 crypto coins, which would only exist in synthetic form, and the actual assets would be held in a secure smart contract. Trading a “snapshot” of digital assets makes transfers much easier and faster, while ensuring on-chain security. However, the Abra app is very different from a wallet with a private key.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
