The Nasdaq plans to increase the limit on positions for options contracts for BlackRock’s flagship Bitcoin ETF.
The Nasdaq International Securities Exchange filed with the SEC on Wednesday to quadruple position limits for options on BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (IBIT). The exchange is raising the options limit fourfold, from 250,000 contracts to 1 million contracts.
Crypto industry author Adam Livingston called it “incredibly bullish news” for Bitcoin, adding:
“This is the transition point from ‘ETF adoption phase’ to the derivatives market phase. And Bitcoin’s price discovery always goes vertical when derivatives scale.”
Options contracts allow traders to speculate on prices without holding the asset; they do not offer direct exposure to the underlying asset as a spot ETF does.
Bitcoin’s Mag 7 Moment
Livingstone commented that the rule filing literally says they’re doing this because IBIT has reached the same level of market cap, liquidity, and trading frequency as the biggest stocks. This is the category reserved for Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, etc, he said before adding, “That’s the club Bitcoin is now in.”
“The market is formally treating Bitcoin as a top-tier global asset class with no liquidity constraints.”
The change would benefit institutional traders by enabling larger hedging positions and income strategies while improving market efficiency through deeper liquidity, tighter spreads, and better price discovery.
Livingston explained that banks can run structured products on Bitcoin without blowing through risk caps, “which means BTC becomes collateral for an entirely new tier of financial engineering.”
“Institutional volume is finally here,” remarked ProCap BTC chief investment officer Jeff Park.
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At last, IBIT options is finally getting the treatment it deserves—
Nasdaq just filed to increase options limit to 1 MILLION (from 25k a year ago)
Institutional vol is finally here
Happy Thanksgiving https://t.co/vqH75rUTSf pic.twitter.com/MpCHxHMW8q
— Jeff Park (@dgt10011) November 26, 2025
While the move would massively improve liquidity, it would also potentially increase leverage and volatility in Bitcoin markets, which could cause these wild price swings.
Bitcoin ETF Outlook
BlackRock’s IBIT fund saw its second consecutive day of inflows on Wednesday, with $42.8 million, as BTC started to recover. However, this follows an epic outflow streak, during which more than $2 billion left the product in just two weeks.
The aggregate flow for all US spot Bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday was $21 million as Fidelity (FBTC) saw an outflow, according to Farside Investors.
In related news, JPMorgan announced an offering for institutional clients for a structured Bitcoin product using IBIT that matures in 2028.
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