Litecoin tests support ahead of Aug. 2nd “halving”

The crypto that’s intended to be the faster-Bitcoin is about to face a pivotal moment that happens once every 4 years.

On August 2^nd, Litecoin is set to experience its next “halving”.

NOTE: A “halving” is when the rewards for securing and recording transactions on Litecoin’s blockchain are lowered by 50%.

When Litecoin first came to life in 2011, a “halving” had been baked into its code every 4 years; with the final halving slated for the year 2142.

 

Litecoin has typically rallied in the lead-up to its halvings.

Sure enough, since its November trough, its prices has soared by over 140% through to its July peak.

That’s greater than the 105% managed by Bitcoin during the same period (November 2022 – July 2023).

However, Litecoin’s gains have been notably watered down of late, with its 29% year-to-date climb at the time of writing dwarfed by Bitcoin’s 75% advance so far in 2023.

Looking at the price charts, the prices of the world’s 12^th largest crypto, according to CoinGecko, is now trapped within several key simple moving averages (SMA), after having shed about one-fifth of its value since its intraday peak in early July.

Trading around $90 at the time of writing, Litecoin is still far below its ATH (all-time high) when it breached $400 back in May 2021.

 

Terraforms ruling muddies crypto’s regulatory outlook

After all, the crypto woes are still intact, with plenty of uncertainty surrounding how regulators and authorities view this asset class.

Just this week, a federal judge in New York allowed the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to proceed with a case against Terraform Labs and its founder, Do Kwon.

In doing so, this judge appears to contradict a separate ruling made last month, which does not label Ripple’s XRP token as a “security” when sold to the general public (as opposed to institutional investors).

Hence, this latest ruling has cast doubt anew on the whether a digital asset is/should also classify as a “security”, and under whose jurisdiction or laws it should comply with.

Amid revived regulatory uncertainty surrounding the crypto sector, bulls are left hunting for a fresh catalyst for restoring prices to recent highs.

For the immediate future, they’ll be hoping that these SMAs will hold as support, even as these widely-watched technical indicators converge amid a lack of directionality.

Otherwise, the next leg down may drag Litecoin back around the $80 - $82 region.