Litecoin and Cardano defy market stagnation with double-digit gains on ETF hopes

Litecoin and Cardano have seen double-digit gains over the last day on the back of ETF approval hopes.

The tokens surged 11% and 16%, respectively, in the past 24 hours, with Litecoin now trading above $128 and Cardano above $0.81. In contrast, major tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum have posted just slight gains of 0.5% and 1% over the same period.

"ETF filings for both Litcoin and Cardano helped both asset prices overnight," Wincent senior director Paul Howard told The Block. "Appetite for non-bitcoin ETFs has been lacklustre to date however, it is becoming a right of passage to open up investment to ETF eligible holders to attract institutional and retail appetite."

Prospects raised for Litecoin and Cardano ETFs

The price movements come as Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas shared on Monday that they believe exchange-traded products for cryptocurrencies like XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, and Litecoin have strong chances of gaining approval.

"Balchunas and I took a look at the filings for spot crypto ETFs. We're putting out relatively high odds of approval across the board," Seyffart said in a post to X . "Mainly focused on Litecoin, Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin for now."

The analysts estimate that Litecoin ETFs filed by Canary Capital and Grayscale have a 90% chance of approval. They gave Dogecoin products a 75% chance of approval, followed by Solana and XRP products, which the analysts expect have a 70% and 65% likelihood of approval, respectively.

Additionally, on Monday, NYSE Arca, a subsidiary of NYSE Group, filed on behalf of crypto asset manager Grayscale to launch a spot Cardano ETF. If approved, it would mark Grayscale’s first standalone investment product for Cardano .

B2C2 Senior Client Relationship Manager Nikolay Karpenko told The Block that the primary drivers behind today’s outperformance of Litecoin and Cardano are centered around growing market optimism surrounding potential ETF approvals. "Polymarket currently values Cardano’s ETF approval odds at 64%, reflecting more measured optimism but still a notable expectation of regulatory progress," Karpenko said. "This wave of ETF-driven momentum highlights the market’s growing anticipation of increased institutional adoption across digital assets."

Since Donald Trump became president last month, the U.S. government has swiftly been repositioning itself to be increasingly pro-crypto, signaling that regulatory obstacles that have stunted the growth of the digital assets industry may be eliminated. Given Trump's embrace of crypto, would-be issuers have applied for the right to list spot crypto ETFs tracking cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin and Ethereum.