The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed its decision to allow options trading for BlackRock and Bitwise’s spot Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) until mid-November, according to documents filed on September 24.
The new deadlines for BlackRock and Bitwise are set for Nov. 10 and 11, respectively. The SEC said it needed more time to review the proposal and extended the initial 45-day review period that was supposed to end on Sept. 26 for BlackRock since Nasdaq filed a rule change request for the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF on July 22.
The same reasoning was applied to Bitwise’s ETHW, whose decision date was postponed to November 11 since the proposed rule change was filed one day after BlackRock’s.
Options are a big issue for crypto ETFs
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) received options trading approval from the SEC on September 20.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said this is a “huge win” for Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs because it will attract more liquidity and, therefore, more “big fish.”
Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, also shared a report from K33 Research on September 24, which highlighted that the Bitcoin derivatives market is 279 times smaller than its equity and commodity counterparts.
It is worth noting that the volume of Bitcoin options traded on the top five centralized cryptocurrency exchanges was equivalent to approximately $33.3 billion between September 1 and September 22.
Meanwhile, Ethereum options volume during the same period was just $9.2 billion, more than three times less than Bitcoin. So, Ethereum ETFs have even more room to grow with the SEC adding options trading.
Mentioned in this article
Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law graduate and seasoned journalist with six years of experience in the crypto sector. His expertise focuses mainly on the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and developments in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Assad Jafri
AJ, a passionate journalist since the 2011 Arab Spring in Yemen, has honed his skills around the world for over a decade. Specializing in financial journalism, he now focuses on reporting on cryptocurrencies.
