Is this the next Bitcoin? This digital currency is up 7,000% this year

This year, as Bitcoin has risen sharply, cryptocurrencies have gained more attention from investors.

Many investors have begun looking for the next Bitcoin, and Litecoin, launched in 2011, may be one of the alternatives.

Litecoin, which was priced at just $88 in early November and $4.33 at the start of the year, surged 60% in a single day to an all-time high of $341.72 on Wednesday.

Bitcoin has risen 1,600% this year, while Litecoin has risen an astonishing 7,000%.

Currently, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is about $600 billion. Bitcoin accounts for $323 billion of this, followed by Ethereum ($71 billion), Bitcoin Cash ($32 billion), Ripple ($29 billion) and Litecoin ($17.6 billion). 26 cryptocurrencies have a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. In early 2017, only Bitcoin and Ethereum had a market capitalization of more than $1 billion.

Litecoin founder Charlie Lee, a software engineer who previously worked at Google and Coinbase, launched Litecoin in October 2011. Lee tweaked some parameters of Bitcoin to make transactions on the network faster and with lower fees. Lee said Litecoin is to Bitcoin what silver is to gold.

It is worth noting that although some investors are still enthusiastic about Bitcoin, industry authorities have begun to be highly alert to the risks of this emerging asset.

Recently, Emil Oldenburg, founder of Bitcoin.com, said in an interview with technology media Breakit that "investing in Bitcoin is the riskiest investment you can make at the moment, and there are extremely high risks involved." He recently sold all his Bitcoins and exchanged them for Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin.com is one of the world's largest Bitcoin websites. Users can see the latest news related to Bitcoin on the site and register to trade Bitcoin.

As for the reason for being bearish on Bitcoin, Oldenburg said that the biggest flaw of Bitcoin is the high transaction cost and long transaction confirmation time. "Once people realize that this is how it works, they will start selling Bitcoin." Oldenburg pointed out:

Bitcoin transactions can now take up to 12 hours to confirm, and while this problem may be gaining attention, there is no sign of improvement as Bitcoin is said to be run by the old Bitcoin network, whose members are the "fanatic Bitcoin Taliban."