- Litecoin price has been in a tight range on Wednesday.
- American consumer inflation continued falling in June.
- Litecoin will go through a halving event in August.
Litecoin price remained under pressure on Wednesday even after some encouraging economic news from the United States. The LTC coin was trading at $96.72, which was much lower than the year-to-date high of $115.36.
US inflation is easing
Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies remained pressured after the latest US consumer inflation data. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the headline consumer price index rose by 0.2% in June from the previous month. This figure translated to a year-on-year increase of 3.0%, the lowest figure since March 2021.
The closely watched core inflation rose by 0.2% MoM and by 4.8% YoY during the month. All these numbers came lower than expected. The trend signals that the headline inflation will likely drop to the Fed’s target of 2.0% earlier than expected.
The figure is notable since it came a few days after the US published soft jobs numbers. Data by the statistics agency revealed that the non-farm payrolls figure jumped by more than 209k in June, lower than analysts’ estimates.
Therefore, there is a likelihood that the Fed will not need to be extremely hawkish in the coming months. Most economists expect that one more 0.25% rate hike will help the bank engineer a soft landing in the near term.
Litecoin has another catalyst that could push it much higher in the coming weeks. The network will go through halving in August. Halving is a period where the network reduces the number of block rewards by half. The goal is to moderate the overall supply of the coin. Historically, cryptocurrencies tend to rise ahead of a halving event.
Litecoin price prediction
The daily chart shows that the LTC price has been in a strong bearish trend in the past few days. It has moved below the important support level at $103.34, the highest level in February.
Litecoin is moving above the 50-day and 25-day exponential moving averages (EMA). It is also forming what looks like a bearish flag pattern, which is usually a bad sign.
Therefore, I suspect that Litecoin price will continue doing well as long as it is above the two moving averages. If this happens, the next level to watch will be at $103.35. A move above that level will open the possibility of the coin jumping to the year-to-date high.
