In today’s Crypto for Advisors newsletter, Canary Capital’s Josh Olszewicz breaks down Litecoin from its history to growth.
Next, in Ask the Expert, the Institute’s Billy Luedtke answers questions about decentralized finance and its growth.
Thanks to Grayscale for sponsoring this week’s newsletter. For financial advisors in the greater Denver area, Grayscale will host an exclusive event, “Crypto Connect,” on Thursday, October 23rd. learn more.
– Sarah Morton
Litecoin: a long-term resilient digital asset
is one of the oldest and most established cryptocurrencies still in active use. Created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee in October 2011, Litecoin was launched as a source code fork of Bitcoin. While Bitcoin ushered in decentralized digital money, Litecoin sought to improve upon the design by shortening settlement times, lowering transaction costs, and increasing supply. For this reason, It is often referred to as “Silver to Bitcoin”. gold. “
Main technical features
Litecoin shares Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) foundation, but differs in several key areas. Block time is 2.5 minutes compared to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes, allowing for faster transaction confirmation. The maximum supply is 84 million coins, four times more than Bitcoin’s 21 million coins, making individual units easier to access. Instead of Bitcoin’s SHA-256 mining algorithm, Litecoin employs Scrypt. It was designed to make mining more widely accessible before the advent of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
Since its inception, Litecoin has maintained uninterrupted network uptime, a rarity in the blockchain space. This reliability, along with low transaction fees averaging less than 10 cents, positions Litecoin primarily as a practical medium of exchange rather than a store of value.
innovation and adoption
Litecoin was also an early testing ground for major blockchain innovations. In 2017, we became the first major network to activate Segregated Witness (SegWit), a scaling upgrade that optimizes block space and addresses transaction malleability. Shortly after, Litecoin helped pioneer the Lightning Network (LN), a second layer protocol that enables instant, near-zero-cost payments. The first cross-chain Lightning transaction routing LTC to BTC occurred immediately after SegWit activation.
Security has also been strengthened through a merge mining agreement with By sharing hashing power between two Scrypt-based networks, both ecosystems benefit from stronger protection against potential 51% attacks.
Supply dynamics and network health
Litecoin’s issuance schedule is the same as Bitcoin, with rewards halved every four years. More than 90% of the total LTC supply of 84 million units has already been mined, and annual inflation remains below 2%. The next halving, expected in July 2027, will see inflation fall to less than 1%, comparable to many traditional safe-haven assets.
On-chain activity reflects the steady usage of Litecoin. The number of transactions increased during the period of Bitcoin congestion and Dogecoin demand surge. Active addresses exhibit resilience over time, highlighting their relative usefulness compared to peer networks.
Hash rate, a measure of the computational power that secures a blockchain, has risen in recent years, supported by increased Scrypt ASIC efficiency and incentives combined with Litecoin and Dogecoin mining rewards. Although mining power is still concentrated in a small number of pools, the security of the entire network has never been higher.
Evaluation index
Two widely tracked crypto valuation tools, the network value-to-transaction (NVT) ratio and the market value-to-realized value (MVRV) ratio, provide context on Litecoin’s current position. NVT, which measures market capitalization relative to on-chain activity, is lower than Bitcoin and Dogecoin, suggesting that Litecoin may be more fairly valued relative to its utility. Meanwhile, MVRV, which compares the market price to the average price at which the coin last moved, remains below long-term bull market levels, indicating subdued speculative excess.
External sentiment indicators support this situation. Google Trends “Litecoin” data has been in steady decline since its peak in 2021, indicating a decline in retailer enthusiasm. However, this situation has historically coincided with undervalued entry points in past market cycles.
Key points for financial advisors
For advisors evaluating the digital asset landscape, Litecoin is a case study in durability. We have been in continuous operation for over 10 years, weathering multiple market downturns and consistently delivering on our value proposition of fast, low cost and reliable transactions. While Litecoin does not dominate Bitcoin’s brand dominance or Ethereum’s smart contract ecosystem, it plays a complementary role within the broader digital asset market.
In portfolio construction, Litecoin can be thought of as follows.
- A diversification tool within your crypto allocation. It offers exposure to a different network than Bitcoin, but with a proven security model.
- It is a low-beta transaction-focused cryptocurrency with relatively modest speculation compared to meme-driven assets like Dogecoin.
- A store of long-term utility that benefits from reduced issuance and consistent adoption even as market narratives change.
For clients considering digital assets, Litecoin serves as one of the most tested and resilient networks in the space. Its combination of security, innovation, and practicality highlights why it continues to be a key component of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
– Josh Olszewicz, Portfolio Manager, Canary Capital
ask an expert
Q. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has experienced explosive growth and hype cycles and is now hurtling towards maturity. From your perspective, what is the biggest gap preventing DeFi from gaining mainstream adoption?
A. DeFi has proven that trustless codes can automate financial services at scale. But code alone is not enough. Even in a “trustless” system, participants always rely on trust that smart contracts are secure, that oracle data is accurate, that trading partners are not malicious, and that audits address appropriate risks. On-chain transactions are irreversible, so any violation of the trust assumption can have devastating effects.
What DeFi lacks is a trusted interaction layer to complement trustless execution. The protocol does not know who the other side of the transaction is or whether their information can be trusted. There is no native way to verify identity, reputation, and track record in a structured and verifiable format. This leaves users vulnerable, prevents protocols from assessing trustworthiness, and impedes institutions from taking action.
Bridging this gap requires an infrastructure that makes the information itself verifiable and composable. At Intuition, we’re building just that. It is a layer of trust and reputation for DeFi and the broader information economy.
Q. A lot of people are talking about how DeFi needs a better way to manage reputation, credibility, and trust. What do you think is the most promising approach to solving these challenges?
Certificates have been part of Ethereum’s DNA since the beginning, and the original white paper even highlighted their identity as a core use case. For more than a decade, builders have been experimenting with certificates and signing on-chain statements to gain trust. But so far, they have been limited to a narrow flow of proving one credential or verifying one fact at a time.
What’s missing is being able to use certificates in a richer context at scale. Rather than just asking, “Does this address hold this credential?” you should be able to analyze thousands or even millions of claims to understand a company’s reputation. That’s the missing layer.
At Intuition, we’re building just that. It is a proof graph that allows verifiable data to be ported and used. By connecting certificates to graphs, smart contracts and AI agents can infer history, context, and reputation, unlocking credit scores, undercollateralized lending, access control, and permissionless reputation markets.
Q. Looking ahead, what types of DeFi applications and innovations do you think will determine the next wave of growth, and what role might infrastructure such as verifiable data and reputation systems play?
The next wave of DeFi isn’t just about moving capital faster. It’s about transferring trust faster. Smart contracts have enabled trustless execution, but the missing piece is verifiable context about who is transacting what with whom.
Once authentication and reputation can be reliably present on-chain, DeFi will evolve beyond a pure collateral base. Undercollateralized lending is now possible, access to pools can be restricted by reputation rather than arbitrary whitelisting, and governance can reward actual contributions rather than idle token balances. An entire market for reputation itself is opened up, where the authenticity of addresses and datasets can be priced and traded, and bets can be made on the outcome.
This is also what the AI agent needs as it moves from performing swaps to making complex decisions under uncertainty. A verifiable trust and reputation graph provides the foundation.
– Billy Ruedke, Intuition CEO
Please continue reading
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- Citibank plans to launch crypto asset custody services in 2026.