The Nasdaq ISE options exchange filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a proposal to move options on the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), BlackRock’s bitcoin (BTC) ETF, into the same regulatory class as the largest and most liquid stocks on the planet.
The change would raise position and exercise limits from the current 250,000 contracts per side, up to 1 million contracts, according to the warning published in the Federal Register.
If the proposal is approved, the BlackRock bitcoin ETF would enter the select “club” where reference assets operate. Among them, funds linked to global stock indices EEM and FXI.
According to the exchange, BlackRock ETF has shown “strong and accelerated” growth in its options volume during 2025. This limits market makers and institutional desks that use derivatives for hedging and performance strategies.
Indeed, the IBIT shows a sustained increase this year. An example of this is the net assets managed by that fund, which already amount to USD 69,880 million.
As seen in the following graph from SosoValue, the daily net flow maintains frequent peaks, with a recent income of USD 42.8 million.
The Nasdaq ISE application includes an analysis that compares IBIT’s capitalization, liquidity and average daily volume with ETFs that already have the 1 million contract limit.
The exchange argues that even a fully exercised position would be equivalent to just 7.5% of the IBIT float and 0.284% of all existing bitcoin, a level it considers manageable.
For Bitcoin enthusiast Adam Livingston, The move is “incredibly bullish for bitcoin.” This, since Nasdaq is placing IBIT “in the same regulatory class as Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft.”
In his opinion, this step marks the transition towards a phase dominated by derivatives. One where “the market is treating bitcoin as a mega-cap global asset.”
The SEC opened a public comment period before deciding on the requested change.