It's not just the price of bitcoin that's gone through the roof this week, the price of another cryptocurrency – litecoin – has rocketed too., which is based on data from the exchange BTC-e.Since then, the price has dipped to a still-respectable $42.7 which, for reference, is what 0.04 BTC would cost you at the moment, according to the CoinDesk BPI.There are currently just over 23,424,790 litecoins in circulation, so the recent price increase has brought the market cap of litecoins to over $1bn.Litecoin was created by Charles Lee, brother of BTC China's CEO Bobby Lee, as an alternative to bitcoin.It's based on the Bitcoin protocol, but it differs in that it can still be efficiently mined using consumer-grade hardware.Bitcoins, however, are now largely mined by ASIC machines that have been purpose built to do just that.That's not to say that such machines won't be created to do the same for litecoin.In fact, Lee thinks there's a strong possibility of this happening."Currently, some think that Litecoin is more fair because there’s no Litecoin ASIC but it may just be a matter of time,” he told CoinDesk in an earlier interview.

Another positive feature about litecoin is that transactions are confirmed faster than they are with bitcoin (around 2.5mins compared with around 8mins).Members of reddit's litecoin forum have been discussing why they think the price of litecoin has increased so dramatically over the past few days.One forum member believes the sudden interest in litecoin was caused by a tweet by political pundit and financial broadcaster Max Keiser, speculating that the price of the digital currency would increase to $50.Litecoin ($12) is up more than 100% since we recommended it last week.We are sticking to our $50 interim target.— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) November 25, 2013 Others believe the spike was caused by low exchange rates between bitcoin and litecoin, so people have been using their BTC riches to buy cheap LTC.Another argument is that people feel they have somewhat missed the boat when it comes to bitcoin.They saw people become millionaires on the few dollars they spent on BTC, so they've now invested in LTC just in case history repeats itself.

Regardless of the cause, litecoin's price increase is impressive, and Lee hopes this will continue.“Litecoin is two years behind bitcoin in terms of our adoption, so it’s interesting to look into the future,” he said.“If we don’t screw it up, litecoin will follow on the coattails of bitcoin.There will be more merchant adoption, and it will become less speculative and more useful," he concluded.Buy Bitcoin Invest in bitcoin slowly over time by scheduling buys weekly or monthly.Buy Bitcoin Start trading bitcoin Get profit from trading on Bitcoin price difference.Create bitcoin exchange account$ 2,702.31 0.62% € 2,422.07 0.70% ¥ 19,880.00 0.40% £ 2,127.87 0.05% ₽ 161,473.59 -0.29% Last price % 24h high 24h low 24h volume # Coins Market cap litecoin LTC $ 45.0649942 $ $ $ 143,345,922 $ litecoin LTC Last price % 24h high 24h low 24h volume $ # Coins Market cap Buy / Sell instantly!

Website Explorer Discussion Buy / Sell instantly!bitcoin news nprExchange Pair last price volume Huobi LTC/CNY $ 45.2172360 $ 36,866,574 Okcoin LTC/CNY $ 45.2259374 $ 33,874,122 Poloniex LTC/BTC $ 44.8583425 $ 14,777,423 Bithumb LTC/KRW $ 44.7498448 $ 11,976,468 CHBTC LTC/CNY $ 45.1336806 $ 10,911,584 GDAX LTC/USD $ 44.7861098 $ 10,404,871 Bittrex LTC/BTC $ 44.9224953 $ 3,281,573 BTC-e LTC/USD $ 45.0014027 $ 3,132,551 BTC38 LTC/CNY $ 44.7787865 $ 3,055,110 Bitfinex LTC/USD $ 44.7822455 $ 2,976,868 Bitfinex LTC/BTC $ 44.8204831 $ 1,986,491 BTC-e LTC/BTC $ 45.0204539 $ 1,964,813 Okcoin LTC/USD $ 45.1910506 $ 1,708,492 Btcchina LTC/CNY $ 45.4927634 $ 994,588 <<  SHOW ALL  >> Total/Average LTC/CNY $ 45.0649942 $ 143,345,922 Tweets by @LitecoinProject xCan't load widget 1JVzATpuSvyz889mquf6Y7atUnAYFFUGygbuy litecoin using credit card

Litecoin Price in USD historical chart Share:         1 liner log 3 months 6 months year all time Transactions Block Size Sent from addresses Difficulty Hashrate Price in USD Price in BTC Sent in USD Avg.1 litecoin in sekTransaction Fee Median Transaction Fee Block Time Market Capitalization Avg.bitcoin atm dcTransaction Value Median Transaction Value nodes Tweets Active Addresses Top100ToTotal   Raw Values Contact:  | Donations: BTC 13KPgojUhg2Rx92WRJQDZR7vy2vegonHsf  | Advertising  | Privacy Policy / Disclaimerethereum price feedHas the Bitcoin Value bubble burst?bitcoin fund jerseyLooking at the most recent prices, we seem readier for a gentle nosedive than a new rollercoaster ride to the top.

Many altcoins are heading down too: Litecoin, Peercoin and your beloved Dogecoin are all in a steady slide to the drain of the cryptocurrency world.But looking at the charts below, many would argue that Bitcoin is up for a new rise to 10,000 USD.This recent bubble wasn’t the first bubble, and it won’t be the last for Bitcoin.You see that tiny top in April 2013?That was a bubble just like the most recent big one.It was playing out on a lower price level, but the percentage rise was equally big.There have been more bubbles in markets ever since markets were invented.All start with a slow rise in price, then a parabolic jump to the top, and the inevitable crash and rebound.At the end of every bitcoin bubble, the value is about 2x higher than what it was.To see this trend in action, we have to display the price on a logarithmic scale.This is useful for values that grow exponentially.The chart below shows us the Bitcoin/USD value over the same 2013-2104 period on a logarithmic scale.I stress that this is the very same chart, but on a different scale.

One can see exponential growth, more or less stable over the years.In 2012 the price grew from $5 to $13.In 2013 from $13 to $800.If we make a similar jump in 2014, we come to the (crazy) price of 10,000 per bitcoin.For this the Bitcoin value only has to continue its trend.Following the full 2012-2014 chart, one can see continious valleys followed by spikes.We are currently in a valley, which is very good news.What will be the value in 2015?The chart below takes an educated guess: The fact that we are in a valley is confirmed by Google.Google trends shows us how popular a keyword is.It tracks the number of searches for ‘Bitcoin’ and other keywords, and displays that in a graph over time.The resulting chart of user interest shows peaks and valleys corresponding in time with the peaks of the price, as can be seen in the excellent research in this forum post.Does this mean more user interest increases the price?Or does a higher price generate more user interest?We can’t be sure, but it is clear that they go well together.

We are currently in a valley of user interest, which means another top is in the make.Bitcoin news is widespread, but how many people do you know that own one?According to wallet counts, the number of current Bitcoin users has hardly reached more than one million yet.Bitcoin is at it’s very infancy.“Bitcoin is still in the earliest phases of industry development.The first years of Bitcoin were about building the infrastructure.Bitcoin entrepreneurs were busy setting up the most basic but fundamental aspects, including wallet and mining services.Today, Bitcoin is just starting to enter the investment phase, where venture capitalist, hedge funds and other financial firms are starting to invest money and capital into this nascent technology.Bitcoin isn’t quite ready for the consumer phase, where end users begin to utilize the services.If the entire history of Bitcoin was a clock, we’re still in the very early time.I would say were maybe in the second second of the entire history.” Nicholas Cary, CEO of Blockchain.info (source) The next jump in price could be ignited by the Winklevoss brothers bringing Bitcoin to the Nasdaq, or by the SecondMarket Bitcoin Investment Trust handing over Wall Street dollars.