12 months ago I wrote here that Litecoin had delivered its 100 millionth transaction over 10 years. In just one year it added to that very large base another 39% increase in transactions. Off chain stats tell a similar story with the oldest crypto payments processor BitPay seeing growth of Litecoin to 27% of all payments, just shy of exceeding the share of all other altcoins on the platform COMBINED. Before Litecoin was added, Bitcoin was well over 50% share while eth and bch managed around 11%. Litecoin changed the game.

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Google bitpay stats for monthly share updates

For years I've heard people downplay the importance of payments, they were less sexy than smart contracts, yesterday's news, but everything moves in cycles. The cycle where litecoin outperforms smart contracts has already begun, those chains are bleeding against ltc. That's the inflection. Since Litecoin didn't outperform in the '21 bull market, and thus didn't take on long leverage it has to work off now, will there be short leverage, thanks to Mike Novogratz's buddies that it gets to work off in the other direction? What happens next year as we approach litecoin's 3rd halving?

All we can do is look back. It's not predictive, but it is informative. In 2015 coming out of the first cryptowinter, litecoin 7x'd outperforming everything early in the cryptothaw. In 2019 it did similar 6x'ing against the grain and with Mike Novogratz openly shorting it (I suspect he and his will be less open about what they're doing this time). In neither instance was litecoin's payment dominance so pronounced. It's infrastructure was better than average back then, it's incredible now.

I absolutely believe litecoin deserves outperformance this year more than anything else out there, partly because of how much it has outperformed on adoption and how much it's underperformed in investment. Litecoin is Deep Clucking Value. Some will say fundamentals don't matter, it's all just a casino, but I believe while markets are a popularity contest in the short run, in the long run they're a weighing machine. LTC's network has performed like a boss in every fundamental, adoption above all. Will the market give it what it deserves? Buckle up for 2023, we're about to find out.