Several market participants, institutional managers and derivatives strategists observed, Nasdaq’s International Securities Exchange has submitted a formal proposal to the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking to raise the options position limit for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) from the existing 250,000 contracts to 1,000,000 contracts, a fourfold expansion intended to accommodate escalating trading volumes and larger institutional exposures, enhance market liquidity and bid-ask improvement, and enable more effective hedging strategies across a broader investor base, while the request—filed on November 13, 2025—remains subject to SEC review, potential modification, and regulatory oversight designed to preserve market integrity and investor protection. The filing explicitly targets options on the IBIT ETF and requests a 300 percent increase in the cap, thereby raising the permitted aggregate open interest from the present 250,000 contracts to the proposed 1,000,000 contracts, with the adjustment to apply uniformly to all market participants under exchange governance and subject to any limitations the SEC may impose. Nasdaq’s filing on November 13 primarily cites an ongoing surge in demand for IBIT options as the rationale for the requested change. Market analysts assess Institutional Implications, Liquidity Dynamics and broader systemic effects in a calibrated manner, noting that a higher position limit expands the capacity for large directional and hedged positions to be established by asset managers, hedge funds and proprietary traders, while concurrently creating a deeper, more resilient order book that can compress bid-ask spreads and facilitate more efficient price discovery across the ETF and its derivatives. Proponents argue that expanded limits will enable more effective delta, gamma and basis management for sizeable portfolios, allowing institutions to implement sophisticated risk-mitigation techniques without fragmenting execution across multiple venues or instruments, which in turn should attract incremental institutional demand. Regulatory reviewers will evaluate the proposal against existing exchange rules, surveillance capabilities and systemic risk considerations, and the SEC may request additional data or impose tailored conditions to safeguard market integrity and investor protection; approval timelines remain unspecified. Observers also highlight that Nasdaq’s activity complements concurrent filings for other Bitcoin-related ETF products, signaling an ongoing strategic effort to scale digital-asset derivatives infrastructure in response to evolving institutional adoption and market maturation. This growth in derivatives trading occurs alongside evolving compliance and licensing requirements that exchanges must navigate to maintain regulatory approval and consumer trust.
