Litecoin (LTC) Will Probably Be the First Cryptocurrency to Get Its Own ETF, Analysts Predict

With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump only four days away from inauguration and new leadership coming to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

Two ETF analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence have named litecoin (LTC) as a potential candidate for the next spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in the U.S.

The ETF analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence named litecoin (LTC) as a potential candidate for the next spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in the U.S., following the recent bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) launches.

According to ETF analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, Canary Funds recently filed an amended S-1 for their litecoin ETF filing, which could indicate SEC engagement on the filing.

Nasdaq filed a 19b-4 form for Canary Funds' litecoin ETF on Thursday, which will require the SEC to approve or reject the ETF in the coming year.

With a market capitalization of $8.8 billion, litecoin ranks 11th among the CoinDesk 20 (an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies excluding stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins) and 24th overall.

However, being a bitcoin fork, litecoin's protocol is similar to Bitcoin's, employing a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism and has not been labeled a security by the SEC, unlike larger cryptocurrencies such as solana (SOL) and ripple (XRP).

“We expect a wave of cryptocurrency ETFs next year, albeit not all at once,” Balchunas wrote in December. “First out is likely the bitcoin and ether combo ETFs, then probably litecoin (because it’s a fork of bitcoin = commodity), then HBAR (because not labeled security) and then XRP/Solana (which have been labeled securities in pending lawsuits).”

The SEC under Paul Atkins is expected to approach the crypto industry differently than under Gary Gensler, which Balchunas noted was a “huge variable.”