Litecoin Investment Calculator
What would buying LTC have been worth? Pick a plan and a start date and this replays it against real daily Litecoin closes.
What LTC actually did, in the data this page replays
Measured from the 3,197 daily closes this page replays — 13 December 2017 to 13 September 2026, from Binance. Figures are bounded by that window, not by the asset’s whole life.
| History available | 8 years and 9 months (from Binance) |
|---|---|
| Bought on the first day, held to the last | 0.185× — a loss of 81.5% |
| Highest close in this window | $387.8 on 9 May 2021 |
| Where it sits against that high | 86.2% below |
| Deepest fall | −93.4%, 18 December 2017 → 13 December 2018 |
| Time to get back to that peak | 2 years and 5 months after the low — 5 May 2021 |
| Separate falls of 50% or more | 2 |
| Days spent more than 20% below a previous peak | 99.2% |
| Best calendar year | 2020: +198.4% |
| Worst calendar year | 2018: -86.6% |
| Annualised volatility | 90.7% |
LTC year by year
First close to last close each year. 2017 and 2026 are partial — the data starts mid-2017 and 2026 is still running.
| Year | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | -22.9% | partial year |
| 2018 | -86.6% | worst full year |
| 2019 | +31.2% | |
| 2020 | +198.4% | best full year |
| 2021 | +15.9% | |
| 2022 | -53.5% | |
| 2023 | +2.7% | |
| 2024 | +38.2% | |
| 2025 | -27% | |
| 2026 | -33% | partial year |
The part the calculator does not show you
Held from the first day in this data to the last, LTC returned 0.185× — a loss of 81.5%. Long holding periods are usually presented as the thing that rescues a volatile asset, and over this particular window for this particular coin, they did not. It is worth setting the calculator above to the full range and seeing that result written out before assuming time fixes an entry.
The deepest fall took LTC down 93.4%, from $352 on 18 December 2017 to $23.08 on 13 December 2018 — 12 months of falling. Getting back to that peak took a further 2 years and 5 months, reached on 5 May 2021. Add those together and the round trip was 3 years and 5 months — the length of time someone who bought at the top had to hold before they were merely even again.
90.7% annualised volatility is ordinary for a major crypto asset and still several times a stock index. All LTC calculators →
Frequently asked questions
＋Would buying LTC on the first day of this data and holding have made money?
No. Held across the whole window the position ended at 0.185× — a loss of 81.5%. That is worth stating plainly because "hold long enough and it recovers" is the usual advice, and over the 8 years and 9 months we hold for LTC it did not happen.
＋What is the worst LTC has fallen?
93.4% in this data, from 18 December 2017 down to 13 December 2018 — 12 months of falling. It took a further 2 years and 5 months to get back to that peak, on 5 May 2021, so the full round trip was 3 years and 5 months. Bear in mind our LTC series starts in 2017; a deeper fall before that date would not appear here.
＋How often does LTC lose half its value?
2 separate falls of 50% or more appear in this data, and the position spent 99.2% of all days more than 20% below a previous peak. A drop of that size is not an exceptional event for this asset — it is a recurring feature of the record, which is the thing to size a position around.
＋What were LTC's best and worst years?
2020 was the best at +198.4%, and 2018 the worst at -86.6%. The gap between those two is the reason a single average annual return is a poor description of this asset: almost nobody experiences the average, they experience one of the two extremes depending on when they bought.
＋Is 8 years and 9 months of data enough to trust this backtest?
It is among the longer records available here — 8 years and 9 months covering several complete cycles, which is enough for the drawdown and recovery figures to carry real weight. It is still one path that already happened, and the next sequence of prices has no obligation to resemble it.
What to keep in mind for LTC
LTC is a mature, lower-beta altcoin; it tends to rally late in cycles and around its own halving narrative.
LTC transfers are cheap and fast, which is why it is often used as a low-cost rail to move value between exchanges.
A backtest is one path that already happened. It shows what this plan produced through the exact sequence of prices LTC went through — not what a similar plan will produce through a sequence nobody has seen yet.