- Transaction fees for LTC set to be slashed by 90% with the next network upgrade
- The move is at least partly calculated to increase adoption by tempting Bitcoin users
- Often seen as Bitcoin’s ‘little brother’, LTC is positioning itself as a faster, cheaper alternative
In the wake of enhanced cryptocurrency adoption worldwide, Litecoin (LTC) developers are not leaving anything to chance. The team believes that by lowering transaction fees they will be able to attract more users into their stable.
Litecoin (LTC) developers announced on Friday, October 19, transaction and network fee reduction by over 10x in their upcoming update. The average transaction and network fees stand at about 0.001 Litecoin per KB which translates to closely $0.05. The company has stated that following the upcoming update, the transaction fees will be lowered to 0.0001 Litecoin per KB which is roughly $0.005.
Cheap transactions even during the height of the bullrun
Litecoin’s transaction and network fees reached the peak of $0.1 per transaction during the cryptocurrency boom of 2017 with available evidence showing there are cases when the transaction fees have gone to up to $1. The developers now feel that for them to encourage more adoption it is necessary to lower the fees.
Core Lead developer Adrian Gallagher stated that the LTC team is working towards changing the entire blockchain ecosystem. He explained:
“To encourage more adoption and usage of Litecoin, I think lowering the fees are a good thing. We’re not even close to blocking limits and the block size on disk is pretty small (20GB) relative to other coins. Technically people can already adjust their fees right now to the one above because of the more relaxed min relay/dust relay fee. I also don’t think it will be too much longer before this bear market is over (3–6 months) so it will lay down the foundation for fee rate which we can grow into proactively rather than reactively.”
Scaling solutions necessary for mainstream adoption
During the 2017 cryptocurrency boom, the value of the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin rose from $1000 to $20,000 during the 12 month period with its transaction fee hitting $50 per Bitcoin transaction in December. Since then the subject of reducing transaction fees or scaling solutions has occupied the minds of developers, investors, and industry leaders.
Even when the Bitcoin transaction fees were on their highest, cryptocurrency enthusiasts saw Litecoin (LTC) as a viable alternative for those that were not interested in the leading cryptocurrency in the world. This has made Litecoin (LTC) gain traction as the alternative online payment method to become Bitcoin’s small brother, so to speak. The creators of the popular altcoin appreciate the fact that LTC transaction fees are among the lowest but they believe a time is coming when their fees will come close to zero.