Nasdaq filed a Type 19b-4 on January 16 to listing and commerce the Litecoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) (LTC) registered by Canary Capital. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, considers this the primary approval of an altcoin-related ETF in 2025.
Following an replace to Canary's Type S-1 submitting, Balchunas mentioned its Litecoin ETF “has all of the packing containers checked.” He added:
“I additionally see no motive why this might be withdrawn on condition that the SEC has commented on the S-1, Litecoin is taken into account a commodity, and there’s a new SEC sheriff on the town .”
Earlier on January 16, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart highlighted that the modification to Type S-1 constituted no assure of approval. Nonetheless, it’s an indication that the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) is on this subject.
After the announcement of the Nasdaq submitting, Seyffart declared that it could take a number of weeks to substantiate the possibilities of approval, because the SEC has but to acknowledge the Litecoin ETF utility.
He added that whereas Solana's (SOL) current filings weren’t acknowledged, a Litecoin ETF might extra probably appeal to the regulator's consideration. Seyffart reasoned that LTC isn’t topic to SEC prices that it’s a safety, which will increase its possibilities.
Litecoin worth has soared practically 24% up to now 24 hours, settling at $129.49 at press time, in line with forexcryptozone information. That is the most important every day achieve among the many 25 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Wave of approvals
Seyffart and Balchunas predicted a wave of ETF approvals would hit the market in 2025. The merchandise most certainly to obtain SEC approval had been combined ETFs, following Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
These merchandise obtained their first approvals in 2024 when the regulator accepted filings from Hashdex and Franklin Templeton. The following merchandise in line are Litecoin and Hedera (HBAR), and the prediction is on observe.
Funds linked to XRP and SOL are additionally on the listing, though analysts consider they may face delays resulting from SEC lawsuits that deal with these cryptocurrencies as securities.
Nonetheless, President-elect Donald Trump is would have think about together with XRP, SOL and USD Coin (USDC) within the US nationwide reserve. This may favor the possibilities of approval of XRP and SOL spot ETFs.
