Investors will soon be able to trade litecoin on the Winklevoss brothers-founded cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.
The exchange announced Friday that it would soon enable deposits and trading for litecoin (LTC), adding the early bitcoin spin-off to its existing offerings of bitcoin, ethereum and zcash.
Vice president of engineering at the firm, Eric Winer, wrote in a blog post that the move comes as part of the exchangeâs effort to support âthe future of moneyâ by providing âa safe and regulated environment for both innovation and consumer protection.â
The listing has been approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), Winer continued, noting that Gemini is âheld to the highest standards of banking compliance and fiduciary obligationsâ under the regulatorâs watch.
Gemini takes a âsecurity-firstâ approach and has been âworking closelyâ with the NYDFS to gain approval for litecoin trading and custody services, he said.
The exchangeâs clients can begin depositing litecoin into their accounts as of 13:30 UTC (09:30 EST) on Saturday, Oct. 13. Full trading will begin three days later, at the same time on Tuesday, Oct. 16, according to the post.
Litecoin will be offered in trading pairs against USD, bitcoin, ether and zcash.
Separately, Winer said Gemini originally intended to announce support for bitcoin cash as well as litecoin, but said âuncertaintyâ around one or more hard forks which may occur mid-November meant they had shelved the plan for now.
âSome of those forks lack the replay protection feature that would be required for Gemini to safely support bitcoin cash,â he explained, adding:
âBecause 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.â
Customers may still see âcoming soonâ graphics on bitcoin cash-related pages on the Gemini platform as a result.
Litecoin image via Shutterstock