Litecoin Outperforms Top-10 Cryptos Ahead of August Reward Halving

With the supply of new coins to be halved in less than five weeks, litecoin is outpacing its peers. The fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $123, representing 5 percent gains on a seven-day basis, according to data source CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market value, is currently reporting a meager 1 percent gain on a weekly basis. Other top-10 cryptocurrencies are trading mixed as seen in the table below. Litecoin’s recent relatively shining performance could be associated with the mining reward halving due on Aug. 6 this year. The process is aimed at curbing inflation by reducing the coins paid out for mining on litecoin’s blockchain by half. So, after Aug. 6, miners will get 12.5 coins for every block mined – down 50 percent from the current reward of 25 coins. Essentially, miners will be adding fewer coins to the ecosystem, likely leading to less in circulation. The impending supply cut might have helped LTC outperform its peers in the last seven days.While it is logical to expect the cryptocurrency to rise further in the run-up to the event, the upside looks limited. After all, LTC has already witnessed phenomenal growth in both price and non-price metrics so far this year, and is currently up more than 300 percent on a year-to-date basis.