LTC/USD Price Analysis: LTC/USD needs to stay above $70.0o to retain bullish bias

• David Burkett reported on the progress of new Litecoin privacy features.
• LTC/USD settles above $70.00, ready for an extended consolidation period.

Litecoin (LTC) has settled above $70.00 ofter hitting the recent high at $73.35. While the coin has retreated from Sunday’s top, it is still over 2% higher on a day-to-day basis. Litecoin now takes 7th place in the global cryptocurrency rating with a market value of $4.5 billion. 

Grin developer reports on  MimbleWimble implementation progress

The Grin developer David Burkett tasked with implementing privacy features in Litecoin protocol has reported on the work progress. In a dedicated blog post, Burkett announced the integration of non-interactive transactions. Thanks to this feature there is no longer a need for a receiver to be online, when a sender initiates a transaction. The developer says this feature will improve user experience significantly.

The biggest difficulty with using MW is the need for sender and receiver to communicate, which requires the receiver to be online when sending. My proposal, along with an updated version of the write-up that will be released soon, eliminates that need. This removes a major UX hurdle, limits long-term maintenance requirements, and supports receiving via cold-storage, making hardware wallets easier to support.

Apart from that, Burkett revealed the next features he would be working on. Thus, he plans to develop a database framework with transactional capabilities. This should help speed up the development of Litecoin’s privacy features.

LTC/USD: technical picture

LTC/USD has entered a range-bound phase after a failed attempt to settle above $73.00. The coin retreated from the recent high, though it retains an upside potential as log as it stays above psychological $70.00. Notably, the daily RSI stays flat, which means the downside correction may be limited at this stage. Anywhay, once $70.00 is broken, the sell-off may gain traction with the next focus on $62.00. This area served as a resistance for LTC in the middle of January. Also, it is supported by SMA200 daily.

On the upside, once the price moves above $73.35, the next psychological barrier of $74.00 will come into view. This area is reinforced by a combination of SMA100 and SMA50 weekly, which means the bulls are unlikely to take it out at the first attempt. If the price rejects this barrier, a protracted consolidation period may set upon us. 

LTC/USD daily chart