Litecoin's 3rd Halving Officially Takes Place

Litecoin's third halving event occurred on August 2, 2023, upon reaching block 2,520,000, marking a milestone in this blockchain's 12-year history.

Litecoin's 3rd Halving Officially Takes Place

Could this signal growth for Litecoin (LTC)?
The Litecoin blockchain, home to the cryptocurrency LTC and ranked 12th by market capitalization, officially underwent its halving event at block height 2,520,000, at 22:06 on August 2, 2023.

The halving event reduced the amount of LTC rewarded per block to miners from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC, marking Litecoin's third halving since its inception in 2011.

Litecoin, often affectionately referred to as "digital silver," is a fork of Bitcoin and shares the model of rewarding miners for processing transactions and securing the network with governance tokens.

"Halving" is a term that denotes an essential tokenomics mechanism for projects using Proof-of-Work like Bitcoin or Litecoin. It aims to decrease the rate of new coin generation through block creation/mining activities, gradually reducing BTC/LTC rewards per block after each halving period.

In theory, the halving process is intended to lower inflation rates on the network. A more limited supply could potentially drive up the value of each LTC coin, thus acting as a growth incentive for Litecoin (LTC). By 2027, the reward per block will decrease to 3.125 LTC.

Similar to BTC's historical pattern, LTC also halves its block rewards every four years. In the history of crypto development, LTC has previously undergone two halvings:

• The first halving occurred on August 25, 2015, reducing miner block rewards from 50 LTC to 25 LTC.
• The second halving took place on August 5, 2019, further reducing block rewards to 12.5 LTC. The upcoming LTC halving event in August is predicted to reduce rewards to 6.25 LTC. Based on related data, Litecoin's halving events will continue until around 2142, when block rewards will reach 0.

The Litecoin Halving Countdown website asserts:

"Just like gold, Litecoin issuance will decrease, making it scarcer over time."

However, as of now, Litecoin (LTC) has not demonstrated any significant price increase. On the contrary, its price has decreased by over 5% in the last 24 hours, dropping from a high of $94.68 to a low of $88.27.

Chart depicting the 1-day LTC/USDT pair on Binance at 11:35 PM on August 2, 2023.

Litecoin was launched in 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. Lee aimed to create a faster, cheaper version of the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), and thus forked Bitcoin.

For traders, the "Litecoin Halving" event may present investment opportunities by leveraging LTC price fluctuations.

KuCoin "Suspends" LTC Mining Service

Immediately after announcing the "Litecoin Halving" event, KuCoin, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume according to Coinmarketcap, took an unusual step by posting a notice canceling Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) mining pools.

KuCoin temporarily suspends KuCoin Pool, including LTC mining pools.

Specifically, in a notice posted on the evening of August 2, 2023, KuCoin announced the temporary suspension of KuCoin Pool, a service providing cryptocurrency mining pools, including BTC and LTC, from 23:00 on August 15, 2023 (Vietnam time) until further notice.

The reason cited by the exchange is to "align with KuCoin's evolving business strategy" and "focus on its core business operations to provide users with a safer and more user-friendly trading platform."

"We will consider the potential for restarting KuCoin Pool based on market conditions and user demand in the future," a spokesperson for the exchange stated.

According to MiningPoolStats data, KuCoin Pool currently ranks 8th in terms of BTC mining pool size and 11th in terms of Litecoin mining pool size.

This announcement came just minutes after the "Litecoin Halving" event and exactly one week after the plan to lay off 30% of its staff, indicating KuCoin's recent financial challenges.