According to CoinDesk, Crypto Facilities, a firm based in the United Kingdom that operates a cryptocurrency futures trading platform, has announced the introduction of a litecoin (LTC) derivative product.
Futures contracts based on the most common cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), have now been offered across major cryptocurrency exchanges throughout the world, but similar products for other altcoins have been scarce. On Friday, Crypto Facilities will launch dollar-denominated futures contracts that will include litecoin as a base asset. These contracts will feature weekly, monthly, and quarterly expiration dates and enable investors to take long and short positions.
The company behind it, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), has more than 25 years of experience trading digital assets. The exchange now supports bitcoin, ether (ETH), ripple (XRP), and litecoin trading, as well as futures trades in bitcoin, ethereum, and ripple with up to 50 times leverage available to approved traders.
Crypto Facilities, a cryptocurrency exchange, witnessed a ten percent increase in trading volume for ethereum-based futures contracts in the fourth quarter. The success is due to the general public’s growing fascination with Ethereum cryptocurrency trading.
The launch of litecoin futures will provide a new market both for retail investors as well as the institutional investors who will now find it easier to hedge, arbitrage or speculate on litecoin price movements. The offering is expected to further boost the liquidity in litecoin. Litecoin creator Charlie Lee believes that “make it easier for people to get in and out of litecoin,” reports CoinDesk.
The decision to launch Litecoin futures was made following “overwhelming client demand,” according to Timo Schlaefer, CEO of Crypto Facilities. “We think that our LTC-dollar futures contracts will increase price transparency, liquidity, and efficiency in the cryptocurrency markets,” he added.
As of writing this, Litecoin ranks 6th on the list of cryptocurrencies with the largest market capitalizations: around $5.48 billion. It was trading at an exchange price of $96.08 Wednesday morning, down 3.7% over the last day period.