Latest news on the prices of crypto Litecoin, Algorand and Ethereum

The crypto market is going through a particularly uncertain period, characterised by a now relatively long lateralisation: how are Litecoin, Algorand and Ethereum performing in this period?

Crypto focus on Litecoin, Algorand and Ethereum

Although bitcoin seems to be dominating the crypto markets at the moment, not all altcoins are slavishly following its trend. 

Ethereum price trend: better performance than Litecoin and Algorand?

To be fair, Ethereum is by far one of the most closely aligned altcoins to bitcoin in terms of price performance. 

For example, if you look at the historical ratio between the total market capitalisation of BTC and that of ETH, you will see that it has been hovering more or less around current values for about two years. 

In the first few months of 2021, this ratio had soared to 7, but from May 2021 it fell to 2.5 and then even below 2. Since then, it has always fluctuated between 2 and 3. 

However, it must be said that in September last year, when the Ethereum Merge took place, replacing Proof-of-Work with Proof-of-Stake, it also briefly dipped below 1.9, but since then it has hardly done anything but rise, to around 2.4 today. 

This shows how the Merge helped Ethereum to establish itself, but only temporarily, as Bitcoin has since regained the lead in the crypto market. 

As for the price of ETH, it has been hovering above $1,800 since 17 March 2023, with rare and brief dips below this threshold. 

The last time it fell below $1,800 was on 26 April, but only for a few hours and without falling below $1,790. 

In the days following the update, Shapella also rose above $2,100, but this proved to be a flash in the pan, as the metal is continuing to lateralise just above $1,800, as it has done for almost two months now. 

It must be said that 2023 started below $1,200, so the current level is certainly reassuring. It remains to be seen if it will be able to break back above $2,000 or not. 

Litecoin Price Trend

In theory, things should be different for Litecoin, as another halving is expected in August. 

A halving halves the creation of new LTCs, so in theory it should reduce the supply on the markets. Should demand remain the same or increase, the price of Litecoin should rise. 

However, the previous halving in August 2019 suggests that this will not necessarily be the case. 

In fact, this year’s peak occurred in late June, more than a month before the halving. From the beginning of July, the price started to fall and continued to do so after the halving. It did not recover until early 2020. 

The fact is that the price of LTC is also strongly influenced by the price of bitcoin. 

April, May and June 20219 were three months of strong growth for the price of bitcoin, which then started to fall, especially at the end of August. 

It is possible that the price of litecoin simply rose in the months leading up to the halving, taking advantage of the boost that Bitcoin gave to the entire crypto market, and then started to fall again before the halving as soon as this influence ended. 

On the other hand, something similar happened in these first months of 2023, although the performance of LTC was lower than that of BTC. 

The price of Litecoin started the year at $70, rose to over $102 in February and then fell back to its current level of $79. In other words, it went up +45% and then down -22%, leaving it only 13% higher than at the start of the year. 

In contrast, Bitcoin started at $16,600 and rose to $30,500 in April before falling back to its current level of $27,500. 

The big difference is that LTC’s rise took just one and a half months, while BTC’s took three and a half months. In fact, bitcoin’s current price is 65% higher than it was at the beginning of the year. 

This is no coincidence, as Litecoin has been underperforming Bitcoin in the medium to long term for years. 

Algorand performance analysis

Algorand is doing even worse. 

This cryptocurrency has an additional problem: it is one of those explicitly accused of being a security. 

In fact, according to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), the US government agency that oversees the financial markets for securities, Algorand’s native cryptocurrency (ALGO) should be considered an unregistered security and thus effectively removed from exchanges. 

ALGO had started 2023 on an uptrend, rising from $0.17 at the end of 2022 to $0.29 in early February. But this +71% was short-lived, as the price started to fall from the end of February. 

It is now back to the $0.17 of late 2022, wiping out all of 2023’s gains. 

In particular, there has been a real collapse since 19 April, most likely due to the SEC‘s accusations. 

However, it should be remembered that it is not the SEC that can decide whether or not ALGO should be considered an unregistered security, so the question is still open. 

Furthermore, while the current price is in line with the bottom of the last bear market, it is also lower than it was at the end of 2020, before the start of the last major crypto bull run. 

At that time it was worth around $0.3, so not only has it lost all of 2021’s gains in 2022, but it is also not far from its all-time low, the $0.10 it hit in March 2020 during the financial market crash caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. 

In other words, over the long term, ALGO is performing very poorly in terms of its market value, even though from a technical point of view the Algorand network continues to perform very well.