Litecoin Market Analysis: LTC/USD finds support at $46.00 as  Litecoin team releases major update

• LTC/USD moves in a tight range with bearish bias as long as it stays below the initial resistance at $47.00.
• A new major update goes live on Litecoin network.

Litecoin (LTC) retreated from the intraday high at $46.97 and settled above $46.00 by press time; LTC/USD has stayed mostly unchanged on Thursday, and gained over 1% of its value, moving in sync with the market. Litecoin is the 7th largest digital asset with the current market value of $3.0 billion and an average daily trading volume of $2.0 billion.

Litecoin Core update released

A new major update is available for Litecoin network. The team announced the release of Litecoin Core 0.18.1 that includes lots of new features, fixes, performance improvements and updated localizations. All Litecoin users are recommended to upgrade to this version. The detailed instruction how to upgrade is published in the official blog of the project.

The notable changes in the protocol touch on such areas as mining and configuration options.

Litecoin’s creator Charlie Lee cheered the update in his Twitter account:

Litecoin Core 0.18.1 final release is out! Who says Litecoin has no development? Many thanks to all the developers that worked on this release! We are already hard at work on the next release, Litecoin Core 0.20, which will bring us in line with the latest Bitcoin Core.

LTC/USD: Technical picture

On the intraday chart, LTC/USD is supported by $46.20-$46.00 area, which includes such technical barriers as 1-hour SMA50 and SMA100. This support stopped the sell-off earlier on Thursday and may serve as a backstop for the price during the nearest sessions. Once it is out of the way, the downside is likely to gain traction with the next focus on $45.40, which is the lowest level since June 9 and the lower line of the 1-hour Bollinger Band.

On the upside, the local resistance is created by 1-hour SMA200 at $46.60. It is followed by the intraday high and the upper line of the 1-hour Bollinger Band on approach to $47.00.

LTC/USD 1-hour chart