Science

Nano: Litecoin Creator Endorsement Gives Cryptocurrency Big Boost

He said it's "pretty neat.'

After predicting that his cryptocurrency would surpass Bitcoin Cash’s market capitalization, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has taken to Twitter to shake up the crypto markets once again.

On February 28, Lee gave a shoutout to Nano. While Lee’s Litecoin is the fifth largest cryptocurrency in the world, with a market cap of $11.7 billion according to CoinMarketCap, Nano is the 17th largest at $2.2 billion.

“I took a look at Nano currency recently,” Lee tweeted. “Pretty neat. Every account has [its] own blockchain. It focuses on fast and free transactions for payments. Uses [proof of stake] for double spend protection and [proof of work] to fight spam. The challenge is to keep it decentralized.”

The cryptocurrency entrepreneur’s endorsement has been credited with causing a noticeable bump in Nano’s price over the past few days. The day Lee mentioned the token, it was valued as low as $13.56. As of 5:00 p.m. Eastern Thursday, it has reached heights of $17.19, a figure it hasn’t been at in over a month.

Just one month ago the token was ranked the 20th most popular cryptocurrency, but thanks to some steady gains it has made its way up the ladder.

Lee applauded Nano’s use of what is known as a block lattice, a variation of the blockchain technology that makes cryptocurrencies like bitcoin possible.

The bitcoin blockchain’s ever-expanding digital ledger has been blamed for making transaction times excruciatingly slow and requires astronomical amounts of energy. Nano’s block lattice system gives each account it own blockchain that then clones to other users’ on the network. This greatly decreases transaction processing and energy use.

In his tweet, Lee admits to owning “some Nano,” which he undoubtedly made some profit on after the token’s rally. The Litecoin creator has been known to be transparent about his holdings every time he mentions a certain cryptocurrency publicly. In December 2017, he sold all of his Litecoin partially because he felt he couldn’t tweet about his creation freely if he had a stake in it.

Lee has been known to move markets, but only time will tell if this boost will last for the long term.

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