Nasdaq’s Worldwide Securities Alternate (ISE) has determined that Bitcoin choices are scorching proper now.
Abstract
- Nasdaq ISE is looking for to lift the buying and selling cap for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Belief ETF (IBIT) choices from 250,000 to 1 million contracts.
- Deribit — nonetheless the dominant crypto-options trade — reached a document ~$50.27B in BTC choices OI with 453,820 energetic contracts and almost doubled its 2024 buying and selling quantity.
- The SEC is reviewing the cap-increase request as demand retains accelerating.
In keeping with a regulatory submitting, the ISE needs to lift the buying and selling restrict for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Belief ETF (IBIT) from a modest 250,000 contracts to a cool 1 million.
That is Nasdaq’s second request for a much bigger buying and selling cap, after they bumped the restrict by an element of 10 simply earlier this 12 months.
Nasdaq ISE argues the restrict improve is important to handle rising institutional demand for IBIT choices and to facilitate official buying and selling methods.
IBIT vs. Deribit
At its peak in October, IBIT’s choices open curiosity hit a jaw-dropping $50 billion.
Evaluate that to Deribit. As of late 2025, the world’s main crypto‑choices trade noticed its Bitcoin (BTC) choices open curiosity hit a brand new document of about $50.27 billion, with roughly 453,820 energetic BTC contracts.
In 2024, Deribit almost doubled its buying and selling quantity — surging 95% to greater than $1.185 trillion — with choices alone accounting for roughly $743 billion of that exercise.
Whilst regulated alternate options such because the choices tied to IBIT achieve traction, Deribit continues to assert a dominant share of world BTC‑choices open curiosity. Nonetheless, IBIT choices now account for almost all, or 98%, of the Bitcoin ETF choices buying and selling, in keeping with Bloomberg Information.
The U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) continues to be contemplating the request, however at this charge, it would as properly simply let Bitcoin go full throttle.
