Andrew Bary
Options trading may begin as soon as Tuesday on the $42 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust, the largest of the Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, offering a new way to trade, hedge, and speculate on the cryptocurrency.
In a Monday interview on Bloomberg television, Alison Hennessy, the director of exchange-traded products listings at Nasdaq, the primary exchange for the ETF, said "our intent is to list and trade these options as early as tomorrow."
Bitcoin ETFs such as BlackRock's iShares fund, which trades with the ticker IBIT, made their debut in January. An industry push to offer options trading on the funds recently cleared some regulatory hurdles. The Options Clearing Corp., which settles options trades, said earlier Monday that it is preparing for clearance and settlement of options on the IBIT ETF.
Bitcoin was trading at $91,813 on Monday afternoon, up 2.8% relative to Sunday, after rising as high as $92,500 earlier in the day. Bitcoin has risen about 30% since the election on Nov. 5 in part because President-elect Donald Trump is seen as friendly to the cryptocurrency industry.
Options traders seeking exposure to Bitcoin have gravitated toward MicroStrategy, the big corporate holder of the currency. MicroStrategy has had some of the most active options of any stock, placing in the top 10 in options open interest in late October.
But with the coming launch of IBIT options, they will have what is likely to be an actively traded alternative. The IBIT ETF is now twice the size of the next two largest Bitcoin ETFs: the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 18, 2024 16:26 ET (21:26 GMT)
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