Is that LTC just pumping - or are people using it for ways to transfer money cheaply between exchanges?
I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely used it for this purpose during the BitcoinCash fork.amazing you said that... I've been having 100% of my paycheck taken out in taxes since september in order to cover capital gains taxes this year 
Hot tip: consider making an in-kind donation of BTC to your favorite charity. In-kind donations give you the usual deduction, but also don't count as a capital gain (b/c you never sold or traded it - just gave it away).
This means if you have, say, 10BTC you want to liquidate, you can sell 5BTC and donate 5BTC, and the deductions from the donated part will cancel out the tax burden of the sold part.
(Of course it's a little more complicated than that due to the IRS's reporting requirements for in-kind donations of weird stuff. IANACPA, talk to yours, etc.)