The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission granted approval for Nasdaq to list and trade options on BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust.

Per the details shared in the official filing on Sept. 20, the SEC’s approval comes after a lengthy review process that started on Jan. 9, 2024. That was when Nasdaq initially filed the proposal to trade options on exchange-traded products.

Nasdaq consistently followed up on its proposal with multiple amendments, which began on Jan 11. Over the following months, the exchange submitted additional amendments and information regarding IBIT and other Bitcoin-based (BTC) ETPs.

SEC’s approval involved multiple stages of review

After almost eight months of review, the SEC finally gave the greenlight for Nasdaq’s proposal. The commission stated that the exchange even proposed to modify its rules to list and trade options on IBIT.

According to the official filing, options on IBIT will be physically settled with American-style exercise. Nasdaq also highlighted that IBIT options will be under the exchange’s continued listing standards.

“Options on IBIT will be subject to the Exchange rules that currently apply to the listing and trading of all ETF options on the Exchange,” the filing reads.

Crypto analysts say decision is bullish

Reacting to the SEC’s decision, several key crypto traders and analysts took to X to share their opinion. Crypto trader Ash Crypto tweeted that this is ultra bullish.

Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas also shared details of the approval on X. Balchunas tweeted his assumption that others will be approved in short order.

See below.

Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds in the United States experienced joint outflows on Sept. 11 following the joint positive flows recorded the previous day.

According to data from SoSoValue, the 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. logged a net outflow of $43.97 million on Sept. 11, ending their two-day streak of positive flows.

Interestingly, ARK 21Shares’ ARKB recorded the largest outflows among the ETFs yesterday, with $54 million in withdrawals, as reported by SoSoValue. Grayscale’s GBTC followed with net outflows amounting to $4.6 million, while its Bitcoin Mini Trust registered outflows of approximately $511,230.

On the other hand, Fidelity’s FBTC led the inflows for the day, recording $12.6 million in net additions. Invesco’s BTCO followed with $2.6 million in inflows. The remaining seven BTC ETFs including BlackRock‘s IBIT saw no trading activity on the day. Notably, IBIT, the largest spot BTC ETF by net assets has not seen any net inflows since Aug. 26.

Overall, these ETFs have seen net positive flows in the last three days, with total inflows into all spot BTC ETFs at approximately $101.7 million.

Total trading volume for the 12 BTC ETFs jumped to $1.27 billion on Sept. 11, significantly higher than the $717 million seen the previous day. These funds have recorded a cumulative total net inflow of $17 billion since inception. At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) was up 2.7% over the past day, trading at $57,932, per data from crypto.news.

Meanwhile, the nine U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs also recorded a net outflow of $542,870 on Sept. 11, led by VanEck’s ETHV with $1.7 million in outflows. Fidelity’s FETH was the only ETF to record inflows, at $1.2 million. However, it was significantly lower than ETHV’s outflows and could not offset the overall loss.

The remaining Ether ETFs remained neutral on that day.

These investment vehicles have also seen their daily trading volume rise to $126.2 million on Sept. 11, a jump over the previous day. The spot Ether ETFs have experienced a cumulative net outflow of $562.6 million to date. At the time of publication, Ethereum (ETH) was also up by 1%, exchanging hands at $2,354.