IEX publishes crypto trust options rules

Investors Exchange LLC filed a proposed rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 22, 2026, covering options on commodity-based trusts that hold one crypto asset or multiple.

The filing also amends IEX rules for options on iShares BBTC$83,962.00▼2.41% Trust ETF (IBIT) — specifically Rule 19.160 on position limits and Rule 19.180 on exercise limits. IEX Options was scheduled to begin trading on October 2, meaning the exchange intended to go live five days before the Federal Register notice appeared; this article cannot confirm from the supplied material whether trading began or was interrupted.

For a commodity-based trust holding crypto assets, the eligibility test requires that each underlying asset’s total global supply must have had an average daily market value of at least $700 million over the prior 12 months, and each asset must underlie a derivatives contract trading on a market covered by IEX’s surveillance-sharing agreement, either directly or through common membership in the Intermarket Surveillance Group. Trusts whose individual assets fail either the $700 million 12-month average market-value test or the derivatives/surveillance test cannot qualify under these standards. Both conditions must be met per asset, separately — so every underlying in a multi-asset trust clears these hurdles on its own or the trust doesn’t qualify.

At Bitcoin’s current price of $84,181, the $700 million threshold translates to roughly 8,315 BTC of market value: $700,000,000 ÷ $84,181 = 8,315.4 BTC. That’s a value-equivalent translation of the dollar threshold into BTC terms, not a statement about Bitcoin’s supply or a forecast of eligible contracts.

IEX’s proposed rules define “crypto asset” broadly: any asset generated, issued, or transferred using blockchain or similar distributed-ledger technology and relying on cryptographic protocols. Tokens, digital assets, virtual currencies, and coins all fall under it.

What the filing doesn’t hand you is the actual IBIT cap. It identifies the amendments to Rules 19.160 and 19.180 but doesn’t state the proposed numerical position or exercise limits. IEX says the amendments are competitive and substantively identical to rules already approved or made effective at other options exchanges — same story for the crypto-trust provisions, where the proposed amendments to Rules 20.120(i) and 20.130(g) are described as substantively identical to rules other exchanges already had approved or deemed approved.

The filing arrived 369 days after the SEC approved IEX’s rules for its IEX Options facility on September 18, 2025. Generic commodity-based trust listing standards for Nasdaq, Cboe BZX, and NYSE Arca had been approved one day earlier, on September 17, 2025.