Litecoin prices jumped more than 21% Wednesday to top $200 per coin ahead of a controversial Litecoin hard fork scheduled for Feb. 18, 2018.
The hard fork will create a spin-off coin called "Litecoin Cash."
The Litecoin Cash development team is claiming it will create a faster, more efficient blockchain that reduces transaction costs.
Still, there is substantial disagreement over the necessity of a hard fork for Litecoin...
In fact, one prominent leader in the Litecoin community has called any fork of LTC a scam.
Let's take a deeper look into the Litecoin hard fork to determine what Money Morning need to know...
How Will the Litecoin Cash Hard Fork Work?
The upcoming fork is promising Litecoin holders at block 1,371,111 a bounty of "Litecoin Cash" during the hard fork.
Owners of LTC will receive 10 LCC for every LTC coin they own, according to the group behind the fork.
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The team behind Litecoin Cash argues that it is providing several improvements to Litecoin's functionality.
The team says its new algorithm, DarkGravity, will alter the mining difficulty of each new block on the blockchain.
Litecoin Cash is also aiming to have faster transaction speeds and lower transaction fees than Litecoin.
But this still isn't sitting well in the Litecoin community...
Charlie Lee Says Litecoin Hard Forks Are Scams
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Litecoin founder Charlie Lee has railed against Litecoin hard forks like Litecoin Cash.
He has even gone so far as to suggest that new crypto coins like LCC are using his creation's name to bolster its marketing potential.
"Any forks that you hear about is [sic] a scam trying to confuse you to think it's related to Litecoin," he wrote on Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) back on Feb. 4.
"Don't fall for it and definitely don't enter your private keys or seed into their website or client."
Lee noted that no one on his team is working on the project.
On Tuesday, Business Insider reported it had not been able to verify the identities of the team behind the Litecoin Cash Foundation.
But by Wednesday morning, journalist Graham Rapier had tracked down a member of Litecoin Cash's design team, Michael "Scarlet" Wyszynski.
The development lead told the media outlet that Litecoin Cash is definitely not a scam.
"While this [naming] convention isn't ideal, it will be instantly understood by most hearing the name that Litecoin Cash is a hard fork of Litecoin," Michael Wyszynski said in an interview.
"We have no doubt that there will be Litecoin forks in the future that will be scams, as well as things presenting themselves as hard forks that are nothing of the sort."
That said, there has been a lot of speculation around the web in recent days.
Author "therockman" on Steemit warned that this is just a ploy to capitalize on Litecoin's name.
"This Litecoin Cash fork though HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH LITECOIN OR THE LITECOIN DEV TEAM!" the author notes.
"It seems to be nothing more than a new cryptocurrency that hopes to capitalize on the popularity of Litecoin, as opposed to a true fork from Litecoin."
In addition, it is unclear which exchanges will support the new cryptocurrency when the fork occurs.
Right now, Money Morning readers should just hold onto their Litecoin and not attempt to collect LCC.
As long as you hold Litecoin before the fork, you will be able to claim Litecoin Cash whenever you want.
It's best to see how this development plays out before putting your Litecoin holdings at risk.
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About the Author
Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.