Bitcoin surpasses $94k following IBIT ETF options trading launch
2024-11-20

Bitcoin is continuously sending a shockwave through the market through its outstanding performance, and now it has attained a new high by surpassing $94,000 on November 20. The news comes amid the iShares Bitcoin Trust of BlackRock (IBIT) recording itself as the first spot Bitcoin ETF approved for options trading. 
James Seyffart, an ETF analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence has revealed that on November 19, Nasdaq, an American stock exchange introduced options trading for the IBIT ETF. The result of this was attaining nearly $1.9 billion in notional exposure. The options leading to the new price of Bitcoin 
Seyffart took to a social media platform, X through which he posted that, “The overall score of 1st day of options of IBIT performed well and recorded $1.9 billion in terms of notional exposure. And, a total of 354k contracts traded them.”
He further went on to say that the majority of these were Call options, which stood at 289,000. These show bets that the price of Bitcoin will continue to increase. In contrast, just 65,000 Put options were traded, which shows that the price will go down. We can clearly derive from the data that around four calls were brought for every put. 
The analyst further added that these options were undoubtedly a part of the step contributing to the all-time highs achieved by Bitcoin. 
With these options, traders get an opportunity to buy or sell shares of the Bitcoin ETF at fixed prices before termination. They offer traders new strategies that help them to manage risk and capitalize on price fluctuations of Bitcoin. It is anticipated that the launch will boost the overall crypto market. 
There are a lot of reasons why traders use Bitcoin ETF. One of the major benefits is that it allows to hedge active Bitcoin investments. It also safeguards against critical price changes. On November 20, some leading asset managers such as Bitwise and Grayscale are introducing their Bitcoin ETF options. And other firms are also expected to launch after this. What did another analyst say? 
Another senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, Eric Balchunas has thrown a light over the exceptional high of IBIT notional exposure attaining $1.9 billion and mentioned that it was only for the first day. 
He further went on to add that, attaining $1.9 billion is not a big deal as $GLD hovered around $5 billion today. He asked to give it a few more days or weeks and mainly highlighted SPDR Gold Shares ETF. 
At the time of writing, the leading cryptocurrency was trading at around $92,577 and a surge of over 30% can be seen after the U.S. presidential election. 