Litecoin quickly emerged as the second largest digital currency after bitcoin, as measured by market capitalization. The altcoin even experienced a degree of merchant adoption in its early years.
Its popularity faded somewhat as the Ethereum project and its native digital currency, ether, became the second largest digital currency in 2016. However, when it was announced in early 2017 that litecoin would adopt the so-called “SegWit” upgrade for its blockchain, which addresses blockchain scaling issues, the price of litecoin shot up and now its even more considered as a better and silver coated bitcoin.