Flappening

The Flappening is crypto slang for the moment Litecoin (LTC) overtakes Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in market capitalisation, the total value of all coins in circulation. Litecoin's creator, Charlie Lee, coined the word in a tweet in February 2018, predicting that it would happen that year.

The word is a play on the "flippening", an older piece of slang for the long-predicted moment when Ethereum (ETH) would overtake Bitcoin (BTC) as the largest cryptocurrency by market value. The flippening has never happened. The flappening did, in December 2018, and the two coins have swapped places several times since. Both terms are informal, and they describe rankings rather than any change in how the coins work.

Think of two football clubs in the same league table. For a season one club sits just above the other, and fans of the club below keep promising that next year they will pass it. When they finally do, their fans give the day a name and celebrate it.

The flappening is that day for Litecoin supporters. It does not mean Litecoin became faster, safer or more useful overnight. It means that, at prevailing prices, the total value of all litecoins briefly exceeded the total value of all bitcoin cash coins.

Market capitalisation for a coin is usually calculated as:

• $P$ is the price of one coin in a reference currency, usually US dollars.
• $S_{c}$ is the circulating supply, the number of coins available to the market.

Worked example with round, made-up numbers: coin A trades at $80 with 75 million coins circulating, so its market cap is $80 \times 75{,}000{,}000 = 6{,}000{,}000{,}000$, or $6 billion. Coin B trades at $300 with 19.5 million coins, so its market cap is $300 \times 19{,}500{,}000 = 5{,}850{,}000{,}000$, or $5.85 billion. Coin A ranks higher even though each of its coins is cheaper, which is why a flappening depends on total value, not price per coin. Data sites can disagree on supply figures, so the exact date of a crossing can differ by source.

Bitcoin Cash was created by a hard fork of bitcoin in August 2017, after a long dispute over block size and the SegWit upgrade. For much of the following year its market value was well above Litecoin's, a 2011 bitcoin offshoot that uses the Scrypt proof-of-work algorithm.

On 25 February 2018 Charlie Lee tweeted that the flippening would never happen but the flappening would. The ranking changed in December 2018, after a split within the Bitcoin Cash community in November produced two rival chains, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin SV. The "hash war" between them, a contest of mining power, damaged confidence in BCH and its price fell sharply, letting Litecoin pass it.

The positions have reversed more than once since then, as both coins have risen and fallen with the wider market. As of 2026 both sit well below the largest cryptocurrencies by market value, and the flappening is mostly remembered as a piece of crypto history.

• Bragging rights. Communities use rankings to argue that their coin is winning, much as Ethereum supporters track the flippening and bitcoin dominance.
• A broader pattern. The suffix is now used loosely for other overtakings between altcoins.
• A weak signal. Market cap ignores how much of the supply actually trades, and figures such as fully diluted valuation or trading volume can tell a different story.

Like When Lambo and Goblin Town, the flappening is a meme that reflects market mood. It records a moment in a ranking table, not a judgement about which network is better built.

• Litecoin
• Bitcoin Cash