Well-followed Bloomberg analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas believe exchange-traded products based on cryptocurrencies Ripple’s XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, and Litecoin all have favorable odds of securing approvals. Notably, they see the chances of a Litecoin (LTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) going live in the coming months as higher than those of other ETFs currently proposed. XRP, DOGE, SOL, ADA To Lag Behind LTC In ETF Approval Odds Bloomberg analysts expect Litecoin, the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, to lead the next wave of crypto ETFs amid a shifting regulatory climate under President Donald Trump. James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas have tipped a 90% chance that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a spot LTC ETF before the end of this year. LTC is the eighteenth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, CoinGecko data shows. Litecoin was created in 2011 as a much faster alternative to Bitcoin and shares a similar proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the OG cryptocurrency. In a series of posts on the X platform, Seyffart and Balchunas noted that Litecoin’s path toward an SEC greenlight might be straightforward as S-1 and 19b-4 forms have already been filed and acknowledged while the regulator also likely considers LTC as a commodity. The applications come amid a ton of digital asset regulation and policy changes in the United States, such as the nomination of a new, pro-crypto SEC chair. The SEC has also established a crypto task force led by crypto-friendly Commissioner Hester Peirce. The tone shift — coupled with the approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in early 2024 — has sparked issuers’ hopes that the SEC could give the nod to a handful of crypto-based investment products in the foreseeable future. Spot BTC and ETH have attracted roughly $40.7 billion and $3.18 billion in net inflows, respectively, since going live. Although the Bloomberg analysts don’t think an LTC ETF would pull in that much demand, they stated that it could still be worthwhile for asset firms with as little as $50 million in some cases. More Regulatory Work Crucial For Ripple’s XRP And SOL After Litecoin, Dogecoin ETFs were given a 75% chance of approval, followed by Solana and XRP products, which Seyffart and Balchunas gave a 70% and 65% likelihood of approval, respectively. Questions linger over Solana and XRP’s security status, with Seyffart forecasting that a spot XRP investment vehicle would not see the light of day until the SEC’s lawsuit against related company Ripple is fully resolved. Ripple notched a major legal win in July 2023 when a federal judge found that XRP isn’t a security when sold on secondary markets. However, the SEC, under Gary Gensler’s helm, has appealed this court’s decision, arguing that Ripple violated securities laws when it sold the XRP cryptocurrency to retail investors. Nonetheless, Ripple executives are hopeful that the new SEC leadership, currently led by pro-crypto Mark Uyeda, will ultimately drop the enforcement case.
