Nasdaq wants to let Bitcoin options run wild
Nasdaq’s International Securities Exchange (ISE) has decided that Bitcoin options are hot right now.
- Nasdaq ISE is seeking to raise the trading cap for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) options from 250,000 to 1 million contracts.
- Deribit — still the dominant crypto-options exchange — reached a record ~$50.27B in BTC options OI with 453,820 active contracts and nearly doubled its 2024 trading volume.
- The SEC is reviewing the cap-increase request as demand keeps accelerating.
According to a regulatory filing, the ISE wants to raise the trading limit for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) from a modest 250,000 contracts to a cool 1 million.
This is Nasdaq’s second request for a bigger trading cap, after they bumped the limit by a factor of 10 just earlier this year.
Nasdaq ISE argues the limit increase is necessary to address growing institutional demand for IBIT options and to facilitate legitimate trading strategies.
IBIT vs. Deribit
At its peak in October, IBIT’s options open interest hit a jaw-dropping $50 billion.
Compare that to Deribit. As of late 2025, the world’s leading crypto‑options exchange saw its Bitcoin (BTC) options open interest hit a new record of about $50.27 billion, with roughly 453,820 active BTC contracts.
In 2024, Deribit nearly doubled its trading volume — surging 95% to more than $1.185 trillion — with options alone accounting for roughly $743 billion of that activity.
Even as regulated alternatives such as the options tied to IBIT gain traction, Deribit continues to claim a dominant share of global BTC‑options open interest. However, IBIT options now account for nearly all, or 98%, of the Bitcoin ETF options trading, according to Bloomberg News.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is still considering the request, but at this rate, it might as well just let Bitcoin go full throttle.
