Bitcoin scales another all-time high in wake of IBIT options debut

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rose as high as $94.6K Wednesday morning, reaching a record high for a second straight day and the day after options tied to a bitcoin ETF started trading.

Options for BlackRock’s (BLK) iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ:IBIT) gathered almost $2B of notional exposure through 354K contracts, Bloomberg Intelligence’s James Seyffart posted on X on Tuesday.

More call options were trading vs. put options (ratio of 4.4:1), which is likely a factor in bitcoin’s record highs, he noted.

The options will provide investors with a “hedging and risk management tool to manage exposure to the price of bitcoin and bitcoin-related products and positions,” the SEC said in September when it approved the listing and trading of IBIT options.

Overall, crypto trading was in the green, with ethereum (ETH-USD) rising 0.7% to $3.11K, solana (SOL-USD) down 0.6%, XRP (XRP-USD) +1.4%, Dogecoin (DOGE) +0.6%, and cardano (ADA-USD) surging 15%.

Accordingly, bitcoin-related stocks jumped. MicroStrategy (MSTR) +7.4%, MARA Holdings (MARA) +2.6%, Riot Platforms (RIOT) +3.6%, Hut 8 (HUT) +2.8%, Bitfarms (BITF) +3.1%.