Today traders on Huobi’s Derivative Market will for the first time be able to buy Litecoin futures. The announcement allows traders to long or short the cryptocurrency which historically, was a fork of Bitcoin. As a result of the news, Litecoin’s price is up up 3.36 percent to $32.70, at the time of writing. Historically, it was once ranked among the top coins by market cap but over time has fallen to seventh place. This news will likely help bring back some of its lustre.
Huobi also announced that XRP—which it called Ripple—is next on its list of growing currencies it allows traders to buy and sell. Coinbase, too has stated that it’s also considering add XRP to its markets. The cryptocurrency is currently priced at $0.31, up 0.2 percent today. Ripple’s XRP has recently moved into the number two spot by market cap, replacing Ethereum, suggesting that whoever adds XRP first is likely to make a tidy amount through the fees charged.
“Litecoin is one of the biggest of the altcoins on the market today and we’ve seen quite a bit of demand for it by our users,” said Livio Weng, CEO of Huobi Global, in a statement, adding “We’ll be adding more coin types to the platform as 2019 progresses, with Ripple next on our list.”
Huobi DM currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum and EOS. The platform offers risk control—a necessary tool when traders have been known to make outrageous futures bets only to lose out causing everyone else to pick up the pieces. So far, trading has been high on Huobi DM, reaching $10 billion after just a few days on live trading and has since broken $20 billion on January 12.
Recently Huobi confirmed its expansion into the U.S. after HBUS—its strategic partner in the U.S. was rebranded under the Huobi name. This meant it also now receives greater technological support from Huobi group. In the past year Huobi Group has also expanded to Australia, South Korea and Japan. Huobi continues to expand into a shrinking cryptocurrency market, a bold move to grow in a down turn. Does the exchange know something we don’t?