Nasdaq promotes significant increase in option limits, BlackRock’s IBIT is treated as “Mag 7”

Nasdaq plans to increase position limits on options contracts for BlackRock’s flagship Bitcoin ETF.

The Nasdaq International Stock Exchange on Wednesday filed a petition with the SEC to quadruple the position limits for BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (IBIT) options. The exchange is quadrupling the option limit from 250,000 contracts to 1 million contracts.

Crypto industry author Adam Livingston called this “incredibly bullish news” for Bitcoin, adding:

“This is the transition point from the ‘ETF adoption stage’ to the derivatives market stage. And when derivatives expand, Bitcoin price discovery always moves vertically.”

Options contracts allow traders to speculate on prices without owning the asset. They do not provide direct exposure to the underlying assets like spot ETFs.

Bitcoin mug 7 moments

Mr. Livingston commented that the regulatory filing literally says that IBIT is doing this because it has reached the same level of market capitalization, liquidity, and trading frequency as the largest stocks. This is a category dominated by the likes of Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, he said, adding: “That’s the club Bitcoin is in right now.”

“The market is officially treating Bitcoin as a top global asset class with no liquidity constraints.”

This change will benefit institutional investors by enabling larger hedging positions and profit strategies while improving market efficiency through greater liquidity, tighter spreads, and better price discovery.

Livingston said banks can run structured products in Bitcoin without breaking risk caps. He explained that this means BTC will become collateral for a whole new level of financial engineering.

“Institutional trading volume has finally reached this point,” said Jeff Park, chief investment officer at ProCap BTC.

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Finally, IBIT options are getting the treatment they deserve—

Nasdaq just filed to increase its options cap to 1 million (up from 25,000 a year ago)

Institutional Vol is finally here!

Happy Thanksgiving https://t.co/vqH75rUTSf pic.twitter.com/MpCHxHMW8q

— Jeff Park (@dgt10011) November 26, 2025

While this move would significantly improve liquidity, it could also increase leverage and volatility in the Bitcoin market, which could lead to these wild price swings.

Bitcoin ETF outlook

BlackRock’s IBIT fund saw its second consecutive day of inflows on Wednesday, with $42.8 million inflows as BTC began to recover. But this followed an epic breach in which more than $2 billion was drained from the product in just two weeks.

Overall U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF flows on Wednesday were $21 million, with outflows coming from Fidelity (FBTC), according to Farside Investors.

In related news, JPMorgan announced that it will offer structured Bitcoin products for institutional clients using IBIT, which matures in 2028.