LTC is at *WORST* a known-good hedge, safe haven, and hot-swappable BTC-compatible backup.
This is a dumb statement. The Litecoin price has historically followed the Bitcoin price. Litecoin shares a large percentage of its code base with Bitcoin. To call it a hedge, safe haven or hot-swappable backup is laughable at best. The only hedge to cryptocurrencies are FIAT, stocks, bonds, commodities, etc... not other cryptocurrencies.
The only possible exceptions to this are stable cryptocurrencies backed by smart contracts or a centralized entity a la Smartassets (bitshares), Nubits (Nushares), Tether, etc..
My statement is supported by empirical evidence. IE, when Bitcoin suffered a chain fork Litecoin shot up in value.
Perhaps you are too new here to remember that time.
The market has decided LTC is the best known-good hedge, safe haven, and hot-swappable BTC-compatible backup.
You are dumb for trying to tell the market it is wrong.
Good luck shorting LTC. Oh wait, you're not actually putting your money where your mouth is? I'm not surprised.
I was just pointing out that there are better ways to hedge a Bitcoin investment than to invest in Litecoin (or any other cryptocurrency.) Also, that there are better "backups" to Bitcoin, mainly ones that don't share 95%+ of the same code base as Bitcoin. If a flaw is found in Bitcoin that kills it, then Litecoin would likely be the next to fall due to the amount of code that is shared. If something major happened that killed Bitcoin, it wouldn't make any sense for everyone to switch to a cryptocurrency that is heavily based on Bitcoin so that we can all relive the same scenario several years down the line.
Your "empirical evidence" constitutes of one small and short lived occurrence. I don't think you can call that empirical evidence when you compare the number of days that the Litecoin value followed the Bitcoin value to that one time that lasted a few days a couple years ago (or however long ago it was.. I'm too lazy to look it up, but yes I was around then.) It is because of that that the empirical evidence backing my side of the argument is much stronger. Anyways, anyone that knew anything knew that the Bitcoin fork you speak of was an easy to fix problem, which was in turn fixed very quickly. Its only served purpose was a method of separating weak hands from their Bitcoins.
I also posit that most people that are invested in Litecoin don't truly think that "LTC is the best known-good hedge, safe haven, and hot-swappable BTC-compatible backup." They are simply speculating that the price will go up at least once from where it's at, and that they will be able to sell their Litecoins at a profit. Litecoin really provides no use or utility in the crypto community compared to other coins that actually bring something innovative and useful to the table. It is king of the alts for now because of the network effect, but network effects can be overcome, and I think Litecoin's time in the sun is nearing an end. We will see who is right in a few years I suppose.