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Cboe Global Markets will launch cash-settled spot bitcoin (BTC) index options on December 2, 2024. Regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), they will be based on the Cboe Bitcoin U.S. ETF Index (CBTX), which tracks a basket of U.S.-listed spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The options will be cash-settled, so that positions are closed in cash at expiration, removing the complexities of physical ETF delivery. Also, they will be exercisable only on the expiration date ("European style") to eliminate early assignment risk. This follows the November 18 NASDAQ announcement of plans to list options on BlackRock's BTC ETF, after the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) cleared the Options Clearing Corporation to oversee the market a few days earlier. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9008-24 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-18/nasdaq-poised-to-list-spot-bitcoin-etf-options-amid-crypto-rally

Trading volumes in bitcoin options listed on the Intercontinental Exchange's Bakkt platform have completely dried up, even while CME's options product is seeing strong interest. As per Bakkt's data, not a single bitcoin options contract was traded last week on Bakkt, withactivity last registered on Jan. 17, when 20 lots had changed hands.

Binance launched European-style "vanilla" Bitcoin options contracts. The options are priced and settled in Tether (USDT). American-style options contracts, which Binance launched in April 2020, allow traders to purchase the Bitcoin at any point up until the contract expires. European-style contracts can only be exercised on the expiration date. The term "vanilla" refers to how the contract arrangement is generally simple, in contrast with more "exotic" products.

Next week will be historic for the crypto-asset derivatives market with a record $1 billion worth of bitcoin and ethereum options expiring on Deribit. Bitcoin options expiring in June make up the biggest portion of Deribit's open interest with 69% of such contracts set to expire during the course of the month, according to data pulled from Skew on Tuesday. On June 26, more than 70,000 contracts will expire. More than 290,000 ethereum options are set to expire on the same day.

In September 2016 Ripple and R3 entered into an agreement whereby R3 would promote Ripple to its consortium of banks. Compensation came in the form of an option that gave R3 the right to buy 5 billion XRPs at $0.0085 until September 2019. In June 2017, Ripple informed R3 it was terminating the agreement, allegedly on the basis that R3 had not upheld its side of the bargain. In September 2017, R3 sued Ripple to get the options contract re-instated, when the value of the option would have been about $1 billion. According to legal papers filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its lawsuit against Ripple, a confidential settlement was reached in September 2018 that granted Ripple an option to buy 1.04 billion XRP that it exercised in September 2019. Assuming that the excercise price remained at $0.0085, that would have been worth between $240 and $480 million.

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) presented a draft concept for its potential e-hryvnia central bank digital currency (CBDC). It considers three possible design options. The first option would be a retail CBDC with smart contract functionality to implement targeted government (G2P) payments. The second option envisions what sounds like a wholesale e-hryvnia for usage in operations related to virtual asset operations, including on crypto exchanges. The third option include cross-border payments functionality, although it's not clear that this is being looked at at the retail or wholesale level. https://bank.gov.ua/ua/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-predstaviv-uchasnikam-platijnogo-rinku-ta-rinku-virtualnih-aktiviv--proyekt-kontseptsiyi-e-grivni

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced that it will launch, subject to regulatory review, options trading for its existing micro Bitcoin (BTC) futures and micro Ether (ETH) futures that will be 10% the size of the respective tokens. The futures options, expected to start trading on March 28, will come more than two years after the firm launched a BTC options trading product in January 2020 and more than four years since the group launched the first Bitcoin futures contract in December 2017.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange traded just three bitcoin options contracts on March 18, with a notional amount of 15 bitcoin, the CME's lowest daily volume since the contracts went live on January 13. Meanwhile, Bakkt has seen no options trading activity since February 27.

According to George Selgin, many proponents of central bank digital currency (CBDC) too readily assume that it can be viewed as a "public option," that is, something costless to a public that doesn't have to use it if it doesn't wish to. But the CBDC "option" isn't a free lunch: it isn't just an extra menu item consumers can choose, or not, the presence of which can't possibly make them worse off. It is an option we should consider only with due attention to its potential, non-trivial immediate and long-run costs.

Options on bitcoin futures from Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) got off to a good start on Monday, seeing trading volume reach 55 contracts in the opening session. That amounts to a notional volume of about $2.3 million or 275 bitcoin, with each contract worth 5 BTC. Also, only call options traded on the first day, as noted by Skew.com, provider of data analytics for Bitcoin and Ether derivatives.

Design options for interoperability and funds locking across digital pounds and central bank money (arXiv) arXiv published a paper by Barclays staff that analyzes the design options for supporting "functional consistency" across digital pounds and commercial bank money. It focuses on three key capabilities: communication between digital pound ecosystem participants, funds locking, and interoperability across digital pounds and commercial bank money. It explores them via three payments use cases: person-to-person push payment, merchant-initiated request to pay, and lock funds and pay on physical delivery. It then presents and evaluates the suitability of design options to provide the specific capabilities for each use case and draw initial insights. The paper concludes that a financial market infrastructure (FMI) providing specific capabilities could simplify the experience of ecosystem participants, simplify the operating platforms for both the Bank of England and digital pound payment interface providers (PIPs), and facilitate the creation of innovative services.

Why do Ripple platform users still prefer to use xCurrent instead of the newer xRapid option? Only ten of the over two hundred financial institutions that are members of RippleNet are presently using XRP payment options.

Derivatives exchange CME Group has announced it will launch options on its bitcoin futures contracts in January. As long as it gets the green light from regulators, the options will go live on Jan. 13, 2020.

"Jürgen Schaaf stressed the importance of privacy (ranked first in the consultation on the digital euro by European citizens) and discussed different privacy options the ECB has analyzed. These options range from full anonymity to fully transparent payments to the central bank. It was argued that full anonymity will, as a preliminary view, not be a viable option as it conflicts with regulation around anti-money laundering. Nevertheless, and as stressed by some participants, since there is no CBDC regulation in place, an anonymous CBDC would not necessarily be against compliance. During the meeting, a survey about privacy was conducted amongst attendees and revealed that 50% of  participants were in favor of selective privacy, which means higher privacy for low-value transactions, an approach that has already been seen as technically feasible. 33% of the participants voted for anonymity, and 0% (!!) voted for payment transparency to an intermediary or fully transparent to the central bank. "

March 27 will see the expiry of Bitcoin options open interest worth 49,400 BTC ($328 million). By far the largest expiry from now until the end of June, the event may already be pressuring BTC/USD.

With BitSwing binary options users can take long or short positions on bitcoin's price within a one-minute time horizon.

Bakkt announced on Oct. 24 that it will be launching the first regulated options contract for Bitcoin (BTC) futures on Dec. 9.

CME Group has just published the specifications for its upcoming bitcoin options contracts. Each contract would be based on one of CME's bitcoin futures contracts (five bitcoin); the contracts would be quoted in U.S. dollars per bitcoin with a tick size of $25 (or $5 for reduced tick sizes).

Three months after launching its physically settled bitcoin futures product, the Intercontinental Exchange's Bakkt has gone live with its bitcoin options and cash-settled futures contracts.

Cryptocurrency exchange OKEx is launching bitcoin options trading later this month.