Litecoin Price Spikes After CFTC Calls It Commodity Alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum

This comes on the fifth day of relatively slow markets, with Bitcoin and Ethereum correcting by less than 2% in the same period. The global cryptocurrency market cap today sits at $2.79 trillion, marking a mere -0.1% change in the last 24 hours.

The most significant non-technical event contributing to Litecoin's spike is a recent statement by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In a lawsuit against crypto exchange KuCoin, the CFTC declared Litecoin a commodity. This statement is crucial as it places Litecoin outside the scope of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates securities and imposes stricter responsibilities on coin issuers.

“KuCoin solicited and accepted orders, accepted property to margin, and operated a facility for the trading of futures, swaps, and leveraged, margined, or financed retail transactions involving digital assets that are commodities including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC),” the complaint reads.

Being declared a commodity potentially opens the door for more comfortable endorsements and further integrations for Litecoin, with less fear of the SEC attempting enforcement actions.

Litecoin started the day at $94.80 and traded sideways until 6am UTC, when bulls took over the markets and spiked the coin to its daily high of $106 before correcting slightly to its current mark of $104.99. The coin is up 11.56% in the last 24 hours and 21.71% in the last week, plus 27.5% in the last 30 days. Friday marks the second best performing day of the year for LTC, only behind an 18.7% spike on March 11.

On the technical side, Litecoin was trading sideways during January and February, bouncing in a horizontal channel between $63 and $77. The coin broke its channel on February 29 and started a bullish trend on March 1. Most of the positive performance registered in 2024 has been due to March's positive results. Since the bottom of the channel to today's high, there has been a roughly 63% spike.

Image: Tradingview

Past data shows that many of the unusually large candlesticks are followed by a correction of many small-bodied candlesticks in the days after. Litecoin failed to break past the resistance set by March 11's spike, which could point to a possible cup-and-handle pattern: A big spike followed by a symmetrical period of a correction, and a recovery that cancels all the losses almost in a semi-circle shape. If this is the case, there should be a smaller correction followed by a similar recovery before a bullish breakout.

Overall, the coin looks bullish and healthy in a longer timeframe. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) shows that the coin is slightly overbought with a 66% dominance of bulls over bears, with Litecoin proving its bullishness after bouncing from its Exponential Moving Average (EMA) 55 and going back again to trade on top of the EMA 10.

Image: Tradingview

Given that the coin is bullish in charts set at 24 hour candlesticks and in weekly candlesticks for the first time since June of 2023, an immediate resistance could be around $115 for a 10% gain. If it remains strongly bullish, the next one appears to be near $135 for a nearly 29% gain. However, if it fails to meet expectations and corrects down, it could drop somewhere near the $80 price line for a -22.5% loss.

Edited by Andrew Hayward