- The price is purely driven by speculation. There are currently next to zero applications for Litecoins. The only thing one can do with them is buying them on an exchange and hoping that they can be sold for more money at some later point. If I'd felt like gambling I'd rather use Satoshi Dice with Bitcoins instead.
I think this is a misconception. I started purchasing Litecoin because I have a monthly bill with
Bytesized Hosting and they accept Litecoin. I bought them to spend and, to some extent, people like me are helping to drive the price up.