First Mover Americas: Options Coming to Bitcoin ETFs Is a Big Deal

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This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter, putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,975.88 +1.3%
Bitcoin (BTC): $92,456.36 +2.06%
Ether (ETH): $3,144.77 +2.37%
S&P 500: 5,893.62 +0.39%
Gold: $2,636.70 +0.85%
Nikkei 225: 38,414.43 +0.51%
Bitcoin (BTC) is changing hands around $92,000, just 2% below record prices ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. session. The largest crypto has advanced 2% over the past 24 hours, outperforming the 1.1% gain in the broad-market benchmark, the CoinDesk 20 Index. Native tokens of Chainlink (LINK), Hedera (HBAR) and Uniswap (UNI) led gains among the biggest altcoins as traders expect broader institutional adoption and less regulatory headwinds for crypto from a Trump administration. Crypto hedge fund QCP anticipates BTC attempting a run to $100,000 in the coming months, with traders rotating those gains into altcoins. “We won’t be surprised to see altcoin season in full swing in the coming months,” QCP said. Still, there’s a chance of a near-term blow-off top — a rapid drop following a rapid gain — as markets remain frothy, Augustine Fan, head of insights at SOFA, warned.
Bitcoin ETF options trading in the U.S. is expected to start today. Options on BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ETF cleared the last regulatory hurdle on Monday, and they could bring more institutional appetite for the largest cryptocurrency. “This marks a monumental shift,” 10x Research said in a Tuesday newsletter. The products “could attract significant trading volumes, potentially driving sharp price rallies in bitcoin,” it said. For example, MicroStrategy (MSTR), the Nasdaq-listed company that owns the largest corporate BTC treasury in the world, is punching above its weight due to the booming market in its share options. MSTR options open interest surpasses the firm’s market capitalization, while the stock’s trading volume levels with Apple’s and Microsoft’s, companies with around a 40-times larger market value. A similar explosion in open interest and trading volume could happen with BTC, which could be accelerated due to bitcoin’s supply limit, 10x Research noted.
Bitcoin mining economics improved in the first half of November, JPMorgan analysts said in a report. The hashprice, which measures miners’ profitability, rose nearly 30% in the first two weeks of the month as the BTC price climbed to record highs. Rising profitability benefited the 14 U.S.-listed miners tracked by the bank, adding about $8 billion to their combined market capitalization. U.S.-based miners’ share of the network hashrate remains at record highs, accounting for about 28% of the global network.
– Omkar Godbole
Edited by Sheldon Reback.
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Krisztian Sandor is a reporter on the U.S. markets team focusing on stablecoins and institutional investment. He holds BTC and ETH.
Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor on CoinDesk’s Markets team.