Litecoin price is down 4% on the day amid rumors about upcoming Litecoin Cash fork

LTC/USD is under pressure, $138.00 support line is back in focus
Charlie Lee says that the Litecoin fork is a scam

Tanya Abrosimova Independent Analyst

After recovering to $159.16 on Wednesday, the Litecoin price slipped back towards $142.00 and then settled in the vicinity of $144.00. On the daily chart, LTC/USD is still safely above 200-day moving average, but the upside has stalled. The price failed to settle above $150.00 resistance and entered the consolidation phase. The short-term support is at $138.00, it is followed by 114.42 (Monday’s low) and $112.00 (200-SMA)

To fork or not to fork?

The Litecoin community is buzzing about upcoming Litecoin hardfork that will produce a new digital asset - Litecoin cash.

According to the announcement on the bitcointalk forum on February 3, Litecoin developers team is preparing a fork that will take place on Sunday, February 18 (at first it was scheduled on February 19). Anyone holding Litecoin will get ten times that amount of Litecoin Cash.

Litecoin fans are puzzled as they do not see any clear reason for this branching out. Unlike Bitcoin, it has never experienced issues either with transaction time or with high fees. While fork does not solve any practical problems encountered by cryptocurrency users, it will be convenient for legacy Bitcoin SHA256 mining hardware users.

The team behind the fork is anonymous: no full names, no links to social media accounts are provided, which is also rather suspicious.

Charlie Lee, famous cryptocurrency enthusiast and Litecoin creator, advises steering clear from the fork.

Since on the topic of scams, any fork of Litecoin, calling itself Litecoin something or other, is a scam IMO. Litecoin Cash, Litecoin Plus, Litecoin *... all scams trying to confuse users into thinking they are Litecoin. - he writes on his Twitter account.

LTC/USD, daily chart

Author

Tanya Abrosimova

Independent Analyst

EUR/USD retreats toward 1.1600 after upbeat US data

EUR/USD pulls away from session highs and declines toward 1.1600 in the American session on Wednesday. Upbeat private sector employment and ISM Services PMI data from the US help the US Dollar (USD) stay resilient against its rivals, limiting the pair's upside.

GBP/USD meets resistance around 1.3400

In line with its risk-linked peers, GBP/USD stages a modest comeback on Wednesday, although meeting some resistance around the 1.3400 neighbourhood. Cable’s humble recovery struggles to gather momentum as the Greenback benefits from better-than-forecast macroeconomic data releases.

Gold loses traction after testing $5,200

Gold corrects lower after testing $5,200 but manages to stay in positive territory in the second hald of the day on Wednesday. The precious metal remains well supported by the deterioration of the geopolitical scenario in the Middle East, while the US Dollar's resilience caps the upside.