In today’s “Crypto for Advisors” newsletter, Canary Capital’s Josh Olszewicz breaks down Litecoin from its history to its growth.
Then, in “Ask an Expert,” Institution’s Billy Luedtke answers questions about decentralized finance and its growth.
Thanks to our newsletter sponsor this week, Grayscale. For financial advisors near Denver, Grayscale is hosting an exclusive event, Crypto Connect, on Thursday, October 23. 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 in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer, Litecoin was launched as a source code fork of Bitcoin. While Bitcoin pioneered decentralized digital currency, Litecoin has sought to improve its design by offering faster settlement times, lower transaction costs, and a larger supply. For this reason, is often called “bitcoin money” gold.”
Main technical characteristics
Litecoin shares Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) basis, but differs in several critical areas. Its block time is 2.5 minutes, compared to 10 minutes for Bitcoin, which allows for faster transaction confirmations. The maximum supply is 84 million coins, four times more than Bitcoin’s 21 million, making individual units more accessible. Instead of Bitcoin’s SHA-256 mining algorithm, Litecoin uses Scrypt, which 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 availability, a rarity in the blockchain industry. This reliability, coupled with low transaction fees, less than 10 cents on average, has positioned Litecoin as a convenient medium of exchange rather than a store of value.
Innovation and adoption
Litecoin was also an early testing ground for key blockchain innovations. In 2017, it became the first major network to enable Segregated Witness (SegWit), a scalable upgrade that optimizes block space and addresses transaction malleability. Soon after, Litecoin helped launch the Lightning Network (LN), a second-layer protocol enabling instant payments at near-zero cost. The first cross-chain Lightning transaction, routing LTC to BTC, took place shortly after SegWit was activated.
Security has also been strengthened thanks to a mining agreement merged with since 2014. By sharing hashing power between the two Scrypt-based networks, both ecosystems benefit from enhanced protection against potential 51% attacks.
Supply dynamics and network health
Litecoin’s issuance schedule mirrors that of Bitcoin, with rewards halving every four years. More than 90% of the 84 million SLDs available have already been withdrawn and annual inflation is less than 2%. The next halving, expected in July 2027, will bring inflation below 1%, which is comparable to many traditional safe-haven assets.
On-chain activity reflects regular usage of Litecoin. The number of transactions increased during periods of Bitcoin congestion and peaks in Dogecoin demand. Active addresses have demonstrated resilience over time, highlighting their relative usefulness compared to peer networks.
The hash rate, the measure of computing power securing the blockchain, has increased in recent years, supported by the improved efficiency of Scrypt ASIC and the incentive of combined litecoin-dogecoin mining rewards. Mining power remains concentrated among a handful of pools, but overall network security has never been higher.
Valuation parameters
Two widely followed crypto valuation tools, the network value-to-transactions ratio (NVT) and the market value-to-realized value ratio (MVRV), provide context for Litecoin’s current position. NVT, which measures market capitalization relative to on-chain activity, ranks below that of Bitcoin and Dogecoin, suggesting that Litecoin may be valued more fairly relative to its utility. Meanwhile, MVRV, which compares the market price to the average price at which coins last moved, remains below long-term bullish market levels, signaling moderate speculative excess.
External sentiment indicators confirm this picture. Google Trends data for “Litecoin” has declined steadily since its 2021 peak, indicating less enthusiasm for retail trading. However, these conditions have historically aligned with undervalued entry points in previous market cycles.
Takeaways for Financial Advisors
For advisors assessing the digital asset landscape, Litecoin represents a case study in sustainability. It has operated continuously for over a decade, survived multiple market downturns and has always delivered on its value proposition: fast, low-cost and reliable transactions. Although it does not dominate the Bitcoin brand or Ethereum’s smart contract ecosystem, Litecoin plays a complementary role within the broader digital asset market.
In portfolio construction, Litecoin can be considered as:
- A diversification tool within a crypto allocation, offering exposure to a network distinct from Bitcoin but with a proven security model.
- A lower beta play on transaction-focused cryptocurrencies, with relatively muted speculation compared to meme-focused assets like dogecoin.
- A long-term utility reserve, benefiting from lower emissions and consistent adoption, even in a changing market environment.
For customers exploring digital assets, Litecoin is one of the most tested and resilient networks in the industry. Its combination of security, innovation, and practical utility highlights why it continues to endure as a key part of the crypto ecosystem.
– Josh Olszewicz, portfolio manager, Canary Capital
Ask an expert
Q. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has seen explosive growth, hype cycles and is now approaching maturity. From your perspective, what is the biggest gap still preventing DeFi from mainstream adoption?
A. DeFi has proven that trustless code can automate financial services at scale. But code alone is not enough. Even in a “trustless” system, participants constantly rely on trust: that smart contracts are secure, that Oracle data is accurate, that a counterparty is not malicious, and that audits are addressing the right risks. Since on-chain transactions are irreversible, failures in these trust assumptions can be catastrophic.
What DeFi lacks is a layer of trust interaction to complement trustless execution. Protocols do not know who is on the other side of a transaction or whether their information is credible. There is no native way to verify identity, reputation, or background in a structured, verifiable format. This leaves users vulnerable, prevents protocols from assessing creditworthiness, and deters institutions.
Bridging this gap requires infrastructure that makes the information itself verifiable and composable. At Intuition, we are building exactly that: a layer of trust and reputation for DeFi and the broader information economy.
Q. Many people say DeFi needs better ways to manage reputation, creditworthiness and trust. What do you think are the most promising approaches to solving these challenges?
Attestations have been part of Ethereum’s DNA since the beginning, the original whitepaper even highlighted identity as a primary use case. For more than a decade, manufacturers have experimented with attestations or signed on-chain declarations to gain trust. Yet, until now, they have limited themselves to restricted flows: proving a single headline or verifying one fact at a time.
What is missing is to make the certificates usable on a large scale in richer contexts. Instead of just asking, “Does this address hold this title?” “, we should be able to analyze thousands or even millions of complaints to understand the reputation of an entity. This is the missing layer.
At Intuition, we build exactly that: an attestation graph that makes verifiable data portable and usable. By connecting attestations in a graph, smart contracts and AI agents can reason about history, context, and reputation, unlocking credit scores, undercollateralized loans, access control, and reputation markets without permission.
Q. Looking ahead, what types of DeFi applications or innovations do you think will define the next wave of growth, and how might infrastructure like verifiable data or reputation systems play a role?
The next wave of DeFi won’t just be about moving capital faster; it will be about building trust more quickly. Smart contracts have allowed us trustless execution, but the missing piece is verifiable context about who and what we are dealing with.
When attestations and reputation can reliably exist on-chain, DeFi scales beyond a simple collateral basis. Undercollateralized lending becomes possible, pool access can be limited by reputation rather than arbitrary whitelists, and governance can reward actual contributions instead of unused token balances. Entire markets for reputation itself are opening up, where the credibility of an address or set of data can be assessed, traded, or staked based on the results.
It’s also what AI agents will need as they move from executing trades to making complex decisions under uncertainty. A verifiable trust and reputation graph forms the basis.
– Billy Luedtke, CEO, Intuition
Continue reading
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- Citibank plans to launch cryptocurrency custody services in 2026.
