Deribit’s Bitcoin Open Interest Sees Nearly 50% Surge from Options Tied to BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF in Two Months.

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) options, launched on November 19, have rapidly gained ground, now making up nearly 50% of Deribit’s longstanding Bitcoin options market.

The increased demand for regulated crypto products in the U.S. has become clear as these SEC-approved IBIT options continue to grow in popularity. By Monday, there were 2.16 million open IBIT options contracts with a notional value of $11 billion, according to optioncharts.io. This is calculated by multiplying the open interest by the ETF’s current price and the lot size of 100.

At present, this surge in IBIT options accounts for 50% of the $23 billion in open Bitcoin options on Deribit, where each option contract represents one Bitcoin.

Options are financial derivatives that give traders the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price on a specified date. Traders use options to speculate on price movements or hedge risk, leveraging volatility or time decay.

Deribit has long been the go-to platform for Bitcoin and Ether options, used by traders to implement both directional and non-directional strategies. However, the platform’s offshore status kept U.S.-based investors, particularly those seeking regulated trading environments, from accessing it. With IBIT options, this gap is now being filled.

“IBIT options, underpinned by BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, appeal to both institutional investors and U.S. retail traders, who prefer regulated markets. The increasing demand for IBIT options highlights this shift,” said Volmex Finance, a crypto derivatives protocol, in an email to CoinDesk.

Volmex noted that the rise of IBIT options is putting pressure on Deribit’s dominance in the crypto options market. Despite this, Deribit’s CEO, Luuk Strijers, expressed optimism about the growing competition.

“IBIT options are mainly traded by U.S. retail investors, a segment that was previously not able to access Deribit. The introduction of IBIT options hasn’t hurt our market activity. If anything, it has had a positive impact by introducing new arbitrage opportunities and providing enhanced risk management strategies for institutional players,” Strijers said.

He further explained that the activity in the IBIT options market is focused on short-dated options, highlighting the growing demand for options with lower premiums.