Investing.com - The price of digital currency Litecoin rallied on Wednesday, while bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies moved higher.
Litecoin was trading at $196 by 06:20 AM ET (11:20 AM GMT) on the GDAX exchange, the strongest level since January 29.
The price jump saw Litecoin overtake Cardano to become the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Prices were boosted following reports that LitePay, a payment infrastructure for Litecoin is set to be launched as soon as 26 February.
LitePay says that businesses will be able to accept Litecoin as payments, but they are also offering Litecoin debit cards which will be backed by Visa.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin was trading at $8,777 on the Bitfinex exchange, up around 3.6% for the day.
Prices have recovered since hitting a more than two month low of $6,000 on February 6, but even with the price recovery, bitcoin remains down around 14% for February.
Cryptocurrency prices fell sharply at the start of the year as governments clamped down on trading and major banks implemented a ban on using credit cards to buy digital currencies.
Prices have also been hit by fears over potential price manipulation. U.S. regulators are investigating the Bitfinex exchange over its links to digital asset Tether, amid fears that it is being used to artificially inflate bitcoin prices.
Earlier Wednesday, South Korea indicated that it will allow cryptocurrencies to continue operating in the country, welcome news for investors who had feared an outright ban.
Other major cryptocurrencies also traded higher, with Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, climbing around 3.67% to $861 on the Bitfinex exchange.
The third largest cryptocurrency Ripple gained around 2.5% to trade at $1.00.