With the announcement of Lite Cash and LitePay, Litecoin prices had been rising over the weeks. And yesterday, with the release of LitePay, the Litecoin payments service, we saw a steep rise in the price of Litecoin, almost by 7%. But alas, with lackluster features that fail to impress, today we see LTC prices taking a downfall.
LitePay was essentially designed as the Litecoin equivalent of BitPay which can help merchants and businessmen to use the platform to accept payments in Litecoin. People basically had the idea they would be able to use LitePay, more specially LitePay Card the same way as their Visa or debit card and spend Litecoin from the card with compatible businesses. However, the LitePay Card feature has been postponed by the company as they refer to as “imprudent” in the current credit card clampdown.
The company states, “Due to recent hostile actions by card issuers towards crypto companies, we have decided that offering LitePay card registrations at this time is imprudent. We will continue to monitor the situation with regards to card services and will open registration as soon as a reliable product can be supported.”
It is true that major banks don’t allow for credit card purchase of cryptocurrencies, but this situation is nothing new and doesn’t justify why Litecoin waited till the day of the launch of LitePay to disclose this news. However, on the merchant side of things, LitePay merchant payment processing was active since the time of launch yesterday, and no trouble was experienced in that department.
But it will be foolish to presume that LTC has lost all its pro points. It is still one of the most stable cryptocurrencies in the market. Also, being up by 25% from this time last month, it is among the best performing altcoins of February. And even if some features are lacking from its dedicated payment service, the fact that it has a dedicated payment will only work in its favor.