Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC) became one of the biggest cryptocurrency gainers Tuesday, outpacing coins with significantly higher market capitalization.
What happened: The proof-of-work cryptocurrency lifted over 5% in the last 24 hours to a market capitalization of $9.23 billion. The coin's trading volume surged 90% to $1.89 billion.
LTC's rally overshadowed heavyweights like Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), which fell 2.54% and 4.63%, respectively, in the last 24 hours.
The positive momentum was imparted following Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas' remarks that spot exchange-traded funds tied to LTC could get approval ahead of Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP).
Balchunas noted that as Litecoin is a hard fork of Bitcoin, it may avoid regulatory scrutiny since it is generally viewed as a commodity.
As of this writing, LTC has one S-1 filing, that was submitted by cryptocurrency-focused investment firm Canary Capital in October.
See Also: If You Invested $1,000 In Bitcoin When The First Bitcoin ETF Was Filed, Here's How Much You'd Have Today
Why It Matters: After lagging behind much of the market in 2024, Litecoin got a fresh lease of life due to the broader rally spurred by Donald Trump's presidential victory last month.
The coin has jumped 31% in the last month, exceeding the returns from Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Social mentions of the coin have significantly risen, according to social intelligence platform LunarCrush, potentially indicating growing retail interest.
Zooming out, we see that $LTC continues to gain momentum with social mentions accelerating dramatically this year, hitting the highest point ever on November 15th. pic.twitter.com/UNPzIPKgJW
— LunarCrush Social Intelligence (@LunarCrush) December 18, 2024
Additionally, the coin's Open Interest surged 17% in the last 24 hours, and over 48% over the previous month, implying a surge in bets on future price movements.
Around 72% of traders on Binance were levered long on LTC as of this writing, according to the Long/Short Ratio.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Litecoin was exchanging hands at $122.03, up 4.70% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Photo by DIAMOND VISUALS on Shutterstock
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