US-based Gemini cryptocurrency exchange has announced that it has received the green light to add Litecoin trading and custody services to its platform beginning Saturday, October 13th.
In a much needed positive note to end the week on, Gemini cryptocurrency exchange has added support for Litecoin to its platform. The New York-based exchange made the announcement this morning via the company blog and, of course, on Twitter.
We are pleased to announce that @litecoin (LTC) is now available on Gemini! Starting tomorrow, we will begin accepting Litecoin deposits, and trading will open across all currency pairs on Tuesday. For more information, please visit our blog on @Medium https://t.co/it5xuF9Hr5
— Gemini (@Gemini) October 12, 2018
Beginning tomorrow, October 13th, at 9:30 am EDT, customers will be able to deposit Litecoin on the platform. Trading will begin on Tuesday, October 16, at 9:30 am EDT. This marks the fourth cryptocurrency to be supported by the platform. The other three are, of course, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Zcash (ZEC).
According to the announcement, the following trading services will be available:
- Continuous Trading (all pairs)
- Block Trading (all pairs)
- Daily Auction (LTC/USD only)
In addition to trading support, Gemini has also added Litecoin custody services.
The Market Reacts
Despite the crypto community’s positive reaction to the news, Litecoin market conditions appear to be surprisingly apathetic. At the time of Gemini’s announcement, Litecoin was trading at $52.46. Since then, the price has meandered upward to $53.40 at press time – an increase of less than 2%. While any gain is good news, it seems somewhat lackluster when you consider that the price of 0x (ZRX) jumped nearly 30% immediately following the announcement of its addition to Coinbase yesterday.
It will be interesting to see how the market reacts between now and the opening of the deposit-only window tomorrow morning.
But What About Bitcoin Cash?
With all of the hullaballoo surrounding the Litecoin roll-out, it’s easy to forget that Bitcoin Cash was also supposed to be added today. So what happened? Where’s the BCH love?
Gemini’s Vice President of Engineering, Eric Winer, explains:
We also had planned to announce support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) today as well. However, there has been much uncertainty lately within the Bitcoin Cash community about one or more possible hard forks arriving in mid-November. Some of those forks lack the replay protection feature that would be required for Gemini to safely support Bitcoin Cash. Because of this situation, we are delaying our launch of Bitcoin Cash deposits, withdrawals, and trading until late November, after the forks have passed and we can evaluate the health of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.
Winer also noted that, until that happens, users might see “coming soon” pages for Bitcoin Cash deposits, withdrawals, and trades.
What do you think about Gemini’s latest crypto addition? How will it impact Litecoin prices in both the short and long term? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, CoinMarketCap