The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed until mid-November a decision on allowing options trading on BlackRock and Bitwise’s spot Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to a Sept. 24 filing.
The new deadlines for BlackRock and Bitwise are Nov. 10 and Nov. 11, respectively. The SEC said it needed more time to consider the proposal, and extended the 45-day review period for BlackRock, which was originally scheduled to end on Sept. 26, after Nasdaq filed for rule changes for the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF on July 22.
The same reasoning applies to Bitwise ETHW, whose decision date was postponed to November 11th as the rule change proposal was submitted just one day after BlackRock’s proposal.
Options are big for cryptocurrency ETFs
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) received approval from the SEC to trade options on September 20.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said this is a “big win” for Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, which he said will attract more liquidity and, ultimately, more “big names.”
Matthew Siegel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, also shared a K33 Research report on Sept. 24, highlighting that the Bitcoin derivatives market is 279 times smaller than the market for stocks and commodities.
Notably, between Sept. 1 and Sept. 22, Bitcoin options trading volume on the top five centralized cryptocurrency exchanges was worth roughly $33.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Ethereum options trading volume over the same period was just $9.2 billion, less than one-third of Bitcoin’s. So the addition of options trading by the SEC gives Ethereum ETFs even more room to grow.
Mentioned in this article
Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law school graduate and a veteran journalist with six years of experience in the cryptocurrency industry. His expertise is mainly focused on the development of the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Asaad Jaffrey
AJ has been a passionate journalist since the Arab Spring in Yemen in 2011, honing his skills around the world for over a decade. He specializes in financial journalism and currently focuses on reporting on cryptocurrencies.
