A bitcoin sign (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Centralized

BlackRock’s IBIT flips Deribit for bitcoin options trading

Bitcoin ETFs are having a strong start to the week, with $522 million in inflows on Monday.

9/30/25 12:12PM

Bitcoin ETFs saw $521.95 million in inflows on Monday, with Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund taking the lion’s share, recording $298.7 million in inflows, according to SoSoValue data. Total net assets across all bitcoin ETFs now sit at an eye-popping $150.4 billion, representing 6.6% of the total bitcoin market cap.

In another sign of bitcoin’s increasing institutionalization, Bloomberg reported that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust flipped crypto options platform Deribit (which Coinbase acquired for $2.9 billion in May) as the top bitcoin options venue.

“Open interest in options tied to the Nasdaq-listed IBIT stood at nearly $38 billion compared with $32 billion on Deribit, after Friday’s expiry of the contracts,” Bloomberg reported.

This feat comes less than a year after Nasdaq listed options on IBIT, the most successful bitcoin ETF, with $87 billion in assets under management. This represents 3.85% of the total bitcoin market cap and 72% of total bitcoin ETF assets under management.

IBIT owning 3.8% of all the bitcoin is bonkers if you think about it. An equity ETF would need to have $2.2 trillion in assets to have as much ownership of its underlying asset class. eg $SPY owns 1.1% of most stocks and it's 32yrs old, IBIT is still a toddler. https://t.co/tgQ6bZxyWB
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) September 30, 2025

The Bitcoin Checkpoint report, from Checkonchain and Unchained, underscored that options are “now the dominant derivatives instrument by open interest, being over $90 billion in size, and eclipsing the futures markets at $80 billion,” noting that “volatility capture and premium arbitrage strategies are having an ever-growing influence on both the ETF and spot markets.”

Lucas Kiely, founder and CEO of Future Digital Capital Management, told Sherwood News that bitcoin is increasingly becoming the digital asset of choice for institutions, which are looking to diversify beyond traditional asset classes.

“This shift has been happening for some time, but now it’s clear that the big financial players are the ones moving the market,” he said.

In other bitcoin news:

Lookonchain reported that a dormant wallet with 400 bitcoin awoke after 12 years, moving its holdings to multiple new wallets. The bitcoin are now worth well over $44 million, a huge rise from September 2013, when one bitcoin was worth about $130, per Bitbo.
In the UK, a long-standing case came to a close when a woman pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property, resulting in the seizure of 61,000 bitcoin worth roughly $7 billion. The Met Police said this was “the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world.” The woman defrauded 128,000 Chinese individuals and turned the proceeds into bitcoin.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Bitcoin tumbles as oil and gas prices spike and the market’s mood turns risk-off

Bitcoin ETFs reverted to outflows and bitcoin suffered $192 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours.

Sage D. Young3/18/26

Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter.

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions.

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Sage D. Young3/18/26

SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework.

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

Aptos, avalanche, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, cardano, chainlink, dogecoin, ethereum, hedera, litecoin, polkadot, shiba inu, solana, stellar, tezos, and XRP.

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

3/18/26

Citi analysts cut 12-month bitcoin projection to $112,000 from $143,000

The analysts’ bear-case scenario is $57,537, based on “recessionary macro-factors, especially weak equity markets,” which could cause ETF flows to stall.

Sage D. Young3/17/26

Bitcoin sees 8 consecutive days of gains, a streak not seen in 4 years

Bitcoin is on a winning streak. The cryptocurrency has generated eight straight days of positive returns, a rare phenomenon that has occurred only 15 times since Satoshi Nakamoto created it, according to a CoinDesk report.

In the 30 days after posting an eight-day streak, bitcoin traded higher nine times and lower six times. The median return in the period is roughly 19%. Despite the historical gains that followed, the last time bitcoin had such a rally, four years ago, it dropped roughly 30%.

Most recently, bitcoin climbed from below $66,000 on March 8 to over $75,000 yesterday before settling around $73,800 on Tuesday morning.

Traders remain modestly bullish on the likelihood of further gains, though the sentiment is fading: prediction market-implied odds of bitcoin trading above $77,500 in the month stand at 54%, a decrease from 73% on Monday.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Bitcoin hits rare 8-day winning streak – but 2022 bear market saw one too