A notable development occurred on Friday, marking the accelerating institutionalization of the bitcoin market, which has been driven by individual investors for years. This is evident in the growth of options linked to BlackRock's bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), IBIT, which have surpassed the total bitcoin options trading on the offshore platform Deribit.
In just two years, IBIT options have closed the gap with Deribit's bitcoin options market, which has been in operation since 2016. On Friday, the dollar value of open IBIT options contracts on Nasdaq, also known as open interest, reached $27.61 billion, slightly exceeding the $26.90 billion in Deribit's bitcoin options, according to data from Volmex. This milestone signifies that the regulated, institutional-grade bitcoin investment and derivatives infrastructure in the US is now on par with the offshore market.
The rise of IBIT is expected to encourage more Wall Street institutions to explore digital assets, ultimately leading to more mature price discovery. Deribit's Global Head of Retail Sales and Business, Sidrah Fariq, views IBIT's growth as a positive development for the broader crypto derivatives ecosystem, providing US retail investors with direct access to regulated leverage and options exposure. Options are derivative contracts that grant the purchaser the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date.
Analysts use open interest as a measure of market size and participation, with higher open interest indicating a deeper and more liquid market. Traders utilize options to hedge existing positions, speculate on price direction, and generate income on coin or ETF holdings. One popular income-generating strategy involving IBIT ETF and IBIT options is the covered call strategy, which allows investors to profit from BTC's implied volatility by holding the ETF and shorting IBIT calls at levels above the ETF's current market price.
The two markets, although now matching in scale, are positioned differently, revealing distinct trader sentiments. According to Volmex, the bulk of open interest in IBIT call options is concentrated at strike levels equivalent to bitcoin trading around $109,709, roughly 41% above the current price. In contrast, Deribit options positioning is more conservative, with call open interest clustered around levels equivalent to approximately $106,000 in BTC terms. The average delta is slightly lower for onshore flow, consistent with retail upside speculation and systematic call overwriting programs.
Put positioning is largely aligned across venues, with open interest concentrated around the $63,500 strike. Notably, IBIT options have expiry dates, with October 2026 expiries being preferred, whereas August expiries dominate on Deribit.
This suggests that IBIT options are approximately two months longer-dated, reflecting the underlying holder base of longer-horizon ETF investors onshore versus more tactical positioning offshore. Lastly, IBIT's implied volatility is higher than Deribit's, attributed to a structural quirk where ETF holders cannot easily short bitcoin directly, leading to increased demand for put options. Overall, IBIT's rapid rise in the options market is striking, now rivaling Deribit in scale, but the two are not direct substitutes, as IBIT options cater to regulated, onshore investors, while Deribit remains the go-to platform for global investors.