Litecoin Creator Predicts "Flappening" Price Ahead of Litepay Launch

The Litecoin rollercoaster won’t be stopping anytime soon. Litepay — a payment system that promises easy conversion from Litecoin to fiat currencies — is set to launch this Monday.

The day before its launch, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee tweeted a prediction that the token’s market capitalization will exceed that of Bitcoin Cash in 2018, an event he has dubbed as “the flappening.” Surpassing a big name like that would be a monumental achievement for the altcoin, and would cement its place amongst the most successful cryptocurrency ventures.

Litecoin’s current market capitalization is $12.29 billion,, while Bitcoin Cash is $21.05 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

As of 12:30 p.m. Eastern Monday, Litecoin is valued at $222.53. The altcoin briefly briefly dropped below $200 on February 24 but seems to have rallied as a result of Litepay’s release and Lee’s comments, spiking as high as $233.89 on February 25.

Before diving into how Litecoin could surpass Bitcoin Cash, it’s important to note that Lee reportedly sold all of his Litecoin holdings back in December 2017. He explained in a Reddit post that he made this move to avoid conflict of interest with being the founder of the token.

Unlike simply looking at the price of a cryptocurrency, market capitalization gives traders an idea of the relative size of a token. This figure is found by multiplying the current price of, say, Litecoin times the total number of Litecoin tokens in circulation. This results in a dollar amount of how much the entirety of the digital currency is worth.

The market cap is majorly impacted by how widely used a certain token is. However, a major issue with a majority a majority of cryptocurrencies is that most stores and restaurants don’t really accept them as a a form of payment. This relegates digital currency to being simply an online asset instead of spendable tender.

If Litepay makes good on its promise to quickly and seamlessly convert Litecoin fundds into fiat currencies for spending, it could possibly be adopted by businesses and increase its market capitalization. That’s the path toward what Lee calls “the flappening.”

Litepay’s website says it will be available in 41 countries, but it remains an open question as to as to how widely businesses will accept the new payment system, and more crucially,, how many consumers will opt to pay with this new, potentially more straightforward cryptocurrency-based method.

Without widespread user support, “the flappening” mightmething of a pipe dream.

If you liked this article, check out this video about Litecoin’s creator, a meme-loving Internet Dad.