Coin That Underpins Dogecoin Becomes Market's Biggest Gainer— Litecoin Pops 7% After Filing Of Spot ETF Application

Benzinga · 10/16 04:19

Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC) topped the biggest gainers list Tuesday after digital asset trading and management firm Canary Capital filed for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency's price. 

What happened: The coin, created from the hard fork of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) in 2011, was up over 7% as of this writing, outperforming all the cryptocurrencies in the market, including Bitcoin itself.

LTC experienced a whopping 149% increase in trading volume over the last 24 hours, as buying pressure catapulted the coin to its highest value in two and a half months.

The rally was spurred by an S-1 filing submitted by Canary Capital on Tuesday—a prerequisite for issuers to file to offer new securities.

The proposed Canary Litecoin ETF aims to provide exposure to the price movement of LTC held by the trust.

See Also: Mark Cuban Defends Kamala Harris’ Crypto Knowledge, Appears To Take Dig At Trump For Selling Tokens And Merchandise: ‘Unlike Your Guy, She Doesn’t Pretend’

The application for a Litecoin ETF comes a week after Canary Capital filed for a similar investment vehicle that tracks the price of payment-focused cryptocurrency XRP (CRYPTO: XRP).

While Litecoin was originally intended to be a payment method, it has since evolved into a tool for speculation and investment, trading regularly in the market.

Interestingly, the Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) network's underlying technology is derived from Litecoin.

Billy Markus, the co-creator of Dogecoin, said in a 2021 interview with Benzinga that the auxiliary proof-of-work or AuxPOW, announced in 2014 after it was suggested by Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, allowed Dogecoin to be merge-mined with any Scrypt coin. 

Like Bitcoin, Litecoin has evaded scrutiny from U.S. regulators on the contentious security vs. commodity debate, a factor possibly motivating issuers to file for ETF applications.

Why It Matters: The much-touted decentralized finance (DeFi) project was launched by Trump last month, with the sale of the project's governance token WLFI set for Tuesday. 

Price Action: At the time of writing, Litecoin was exchanging hands at $71.72, up 7.31% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.  

Photo by DIAMOND VISUALS on Shutterstock

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