Nasdaq, the exchange for trading financial assets and stocks, made a request to U.S. regulators to allow it to trade options linked to the spot Ethereum ETFs that recently entered the market.

Ethereum ETF options trading

The request came in a form filed on [specific date] with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which Nasdaq proposed to the agency to allow trading of derivatives of the iShares Ethereum Trust, a spot Ethereum ETF managed by BlackRock and better known as ETHA, whose shares are traded on the Nasdaq platform. It should be noted that Nasdaq also made a similar request some time ago regarding spot Bitcoin ETFs. 

However, the SEC informed the platform and other interested parties that these products were not authorized for the time being because more time was needed to properly study the case. Options trading would become a natural step in the stock market, as they allow for new products and modalities related to the asset they are associated with. 

According to Cointelegraph, hedge funds and financial advisors can turn to these alternatives to protect themselves from abrupt market movements, such as the widespread drop that affected Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies since August 4. According to analysts consulted by Cointelegraph, allowing the trading of options associated with Ethereum ETFs would open up a much larger market to these products, attracting larger amounts of capital and helping to popularize them among interested investors.

Ethereum ETFs and their market debut

After months of uncertainty and waiting, Ethereum ETFs finally officially hit the market on July 23. Although they have seen more outflows than inflows in the 11 days of trading on the U.S. exchange, the large capital flows highlight investor interest in the new product.

According to data published by Farside Investors, to date, Ethereum ETFs have posted a balance of $473.9 million in outflows, a figure driven primarily by sales by Grayscale’s ETHE, which alone racked up more than $2.203 billion in sales. However, in contrast to the negative results of one of Grayscale’s funds, we find the performance of products from BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, and Grayscale’s other fund, which accumulated positive balances of $759.9 million, $335.8 million, $295.1 million, and $213.1 million, respectively.

Finally, as for Ethereum, the digital currency is trading at the time of writing at around $2,500 per unit, a value that represents an increase of 2.5% in the last 24 hours.