The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has further delayed making a decision on Canary Capital’s proposal for a spot Litecoin (LTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
This comes after the agency delayed several other applications for spot crypto ETFs last week, including XRP, Hedera, and Dogecoin, but had not previously delayed the Canary Litecoin ETF. This sparked hope that the regulator might be considering different plans for this particular fund.
However, on Monday, the official deadline, the SEC announced the delay and invited public comments regarding the proposal’s compliance with regulatory requirements.
“In particular, the Commission seeks comment on whether the proposal to list and trade Shares of the Trust, which would hold LTC, is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, or raises any new or novel concerns not previously contemplated by the Commission,” the agency outlined in a filing.
Canary Capital, which was founded by former Valkyrie Funds co-founder Steven McClurg last year, initially submitted paperwork for the fund in October.
LTC, boasting a market cap of $6.6 billion, is the native cryptocurrency of Litecoin, an open-source blockchain project with its code derived from Bitcoin’s (BTC).
ETF experts at Bloomberg Intelligence had predicted that LTC could be among the next digital assets to be wrapped up in an ETF, amid discussions that Canary Capital had received feedback from the SEC regarding its application back in January.
To date, issuers have yet to receive the first significant decision on crypto ETFs from the recently appointed SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who assumed the role in April. With Atkins’ installation replacing former Chair Gary Gensler, the landscape could significantly shift—a change characterized by Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas as a “huge variable.”
