Litecoin block reward halved, triggering short-lived price rally

Litecoin block rewards will cut in half today, a move that has helped push its price over $100.

As a result of the halving, miners will now only gain 12.5 LTC for every block, compared to the 25 LTC they received previously. The Litecoin network is designed to cut its mining rewards in half every 840,000 blocks, and the cut on August 5 was triggered as the block height hit 1,680,000. 

The market reacted positively to the news as the price of litecoin soared over $100 immediately after the halving was triggered. However, it soon dropped below $100 and hovers around $98 currently, according to Coinbase data. 

At the time of publication, there are roughly 63 million LTC in circulation, which accounts for around $6 billion in market cap and 75% of the total supply. At the current pace of litecoin block mining, which is around 2.5 minutes per block, halving will happen roughly every four years.