The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed its decision to allow options trading on BlackRock and Bitwise’s spot Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) until mid-November, according to a filing on September 24.
The new deadlines for BlackRock and Bitwise are November 10 and November 11, respectively. The SEC said it needed more time to consider the proposal, extending BlackRock’s initial 45-day review period that was originally set to end on September 26 after Nasdaq filed a rule change for the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF on July 22.
The same reasoning applied to Bitwise’s ETHW, whose proposed rule change was submitted a day later than BlackRock’s, pushing back the decision date to November 11.
Options are a very important element of cryptocurrency ETFs.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) received SEC approval for options trading on September 20.
Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s chief ETF analyst, said this is a “huge win” for Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, as it will attract more liquidity and, as a result, more “big fish.”
Matthew Siegel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, also shared a report from K33 Research on September 24 that highlighted that Bitcoin’s derivatives market is 279 times smaller than the stock and commodities markets.
It is noteworthy that from September 1 to September 22, Bitcoin options trading volume on the top five centralized cryptocurrency exchanges reached approximately $33.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Ethereum options trading volume during the same period was just $9.2 billion, more than three times less than Bitcoin. So with the SEC adding options trading, Ethereum ETFs have even more room to grow.
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Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law school graduate and seasoned journalist with 6 years of experience in the cryptocurrency industry. His expertise is mainly focused on the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and decentralized finance (DeFi) development.
Assad Jafri
AJ has been a passionate journalist for over 10 years, honing his skills globally since the Arab Spring in Yemen in 2011. He specializes in financial journalism and currently focuses on cryptocurrency reporting.