Litecoin ETF Likely To Debut Next As SEC Opens Comment Period For Canary Capital’s Proposed LTC Fund

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has acknowledged Canary Capital’s Litecoin ETF proposal, saying it would be soliciting comments and asked for those to be submitted 21 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The move signals LTC may be the next crypto asset in the United States to receive the crypto ETF treatment, following Bitcoin and Ether in 2024.

SEC Seeks Public Comments On Canary Capital’s Litecoin ETF

US regulators are moving Canary Capital’s proposal to list a spot Litecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) forward by inviting public comments.

Canary submitted its S-1 registration statement with the SEC in October, indicating its intention to give traditional investors exposure to the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” That came less than a week after getting the ball rolling for a spot XRP-based exchange-traded fund.

The Nasdaq exchange filed a 19b-4 form for Canary’s spot Litecoin ETF on Jan. 16. A 19b-4 filing is a document filed by exchanges on behalf of potential ETF providers, marking the second part of a two-step process for proposing a spot crypto investment product.

“This is the first altcoin ETF filing to get acknowledged,” Bloomberg’s Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas remarked on X. “Throw in the comments from SEC on the S-1, and this filing is by far the furthest along checking all the boxes.

The price of Litecoin surged 18.4% after the acknowledgment from the SEC, changing hands at $132.69 as of press time.

Litecoin Poised To Become Third US Spot Crypto ETF

If approved, LTC would become the third spot crypto ETF greenlighted in the United States after Bitcoin and Ether. The question now, Balchunas notes, is whether the regulator will use the entire 240-day review period or “approve more rapidly.”

ETF filings for altcoins such as Solana (SOL) and Ripple’s XRP are currently on the SEC’s desk. However, Balchunas previously posited that such products had a lower likelihood of being greenlighted before Litecoin due to regulatory overhangs despite what is deemed as a crypto-friendly Donald Trump regime.

The SEC is being helmed by Acting chairman Mark Uyeda, who recently appointed fellow pro-crypto Republican Commissioner Hester Pierce to lead a crypto task force. Their leadership marks a change from former chair Gary Gensler who adopted a more antagonistic position on fast-growing the crypto sector. 

After his contentious tenure at the SEC, the crypto villain has now returned to MIT as a professor to teach and research artificial intelligence in finance, financial tech, and regulatory policy.