The activation of Segregated Witness will eventually drive the rise of Litecoin, which is expected to be on par with Bitcoin

Segregated Witness (SegWit) has been activated on the Litecoin network, and the upgraded version has completed its first transaction. Some Litecoin users have held a vote to select the technology/feature they most want to add to the Litecoin network, and the result is that the Lightning Network for instant and scalable off-chain transactions has won the championship (77% of the votes).

The remaining options are Ethereum smart contract MAST (4% of people voted), confidential transaction function (15% of people voted) and Schnorr for on-chain expansion (4% of people voted).

Flash Network technology promises to make Litecoin the first cryptocurrency that can be used for small, everyday transactions, making it an easily accessible cryptocurrency once existing businesses become more accepting of it.

Currently, Litecoin is not as good as Bitcoin as it can be used as both a digital currency and a store of value. However, considering that Litecoin’s price is still affordable to many people, unlike Bitcoin which is becoming increasingly expensive, Litecoin may become famous due to its frequent use.

While the activation of SegWit did not really boost the price as expected – this could be due to the fact that the price of Bitcoin has risen to $1,850 at the time of writing – the outlook for Litecoin is positive now. It can be used in real life and can effectively penetrate the market for itself and other cryptocurrencies, which will increase the price accordingly.

Since the activation of the network, many people have been looking forward to Litecoin's implementation of the Lightning Network, and some Lightning Network transactions have been demonstrated on the Litecoin network. According to Babbitt, Litecoin has completed the first Lightning Network transaction, and the transaction was completed almost instantly. The hard part now is to let users see the speed of transactions to encourage mass adoption. Before Bitcoin finds a scaling solution, Litecoin can take the opportunity to gather millions of customers and merchants. Litecoin will continue to grow steadily in the next two years, and by that time, Litecoin may become the main alternative currency to Bitcoin. Litecoin prices will also rise to a point that the market cannot ignore.

According to Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, several Lightning Network implementations are available today — though most have been tested on Litecoin, and still require more preparation for a better customer experience — including Amiko Payments, Blockchain Thunder Network, ACING’s éclair technology, Blockstream’s Lightning Network, MIT Multimedia Lab’s Lightning Network software lit, and Lightning Lab’s software lnd.