Bitcoin Lags as Options Trading Returns to 2021 Levels
While U.S. options trading is moving back toward 2021 levels, spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs are still seeing outflows. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for all of the BTC outflow.
Key Takeaways
- Trading in options on individual stocks is back to nearly 2021 levels, but Bitcoin is not following that trend.
- U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $65.40 million in net outflows on October 12, entirely driven by BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust.
- Spot Ethereum ETFs lost $85.39 million, putting them on a 10-day outflow streak.
Trading in options on individual stocks is back to nearly 2021 levels, but Bitcoin is not showing the same pattern. While BTC more than doubled during that period, the price is now just below $84,000 (€75,100), and U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are still seeing outflows.
Back to 2021
According to Carrick Lane, an options-focused investment manager, the underlying stock value traded in individual stock options is now around $700 billion (€626 billion) per day. That is close to 2021 levels, when a wave of new retail investors rushed into derivatives after the pandemic period.
Bitcoin benefited from that broader risk appetite at the time. The price rose from about $29,000 (€25,900) at the end of 2020 to nearly $65,000 (€58,100) in April 2021. The numbers do not show that the options boom directly caused that move, but the two trends did happen at the same time.
ETFs Are Seeing Outflows
This time, the picture is different. On October 12, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a combined $65.40 million (€58.5 million) in net outflows, according to SoSoValue. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust accounted for the entire outflow. In the first 13 trading days through October 9, inflows into Bitcoin ETFs came to about $232 million (€207 million).
Ethereum also faced weak demand. Spot Ethereum ETFs lost $85.39 million, putting them on a 10-day outflow streak. More broadly, that fits with a month in which Bitcoin ETFs already saw about $407.4 million (€364 million) in net outflows in October and Ether ETFs about $578.9 million (€518 million), for nearly $1 billion (€0.9 billion) combined.
Why This Matters
For European crypto followers, this matters mainly because ETF flows are often a quick gauge of institutional and retail demand in the U.S. If that demand fades while retail stock trading is picking up, it could mean capital is heading elsewhere for now. At the same time, history shows that retail trading often picks up in October after a quieter summer, although it is still not clear whether crypto will benefit from that again. That contrasts with earlier periods when Bitcoin moved along with broader risk appetite, such as the recent lag behind record highs on Wall Street.
