SEC keeps Nasdaq bitcoin index options approval stayed while CME challenge moves forward
The Commission granted CME Group’s petition to review Nasdaq PHLX’s delegated approval and set Aug. 24 as the deadline for statements on the proposed cash-settled contracts.
By The Third AnglePublished 3 min read
Financial market charts. The image is illustrative and does not depict Nasdaq’s proposed bitcoin index options. Photo: Jamie Street / Unsplash · Unsplash License
The Securities and Exchange Commission has kept Nasdaq PHLX’s approval to list and trade bitcoin index options on hold while it reviews a challenge from CME Group. In a July 29 order, the Commission granted CME’s petition for review and said the approval would remain stayed pending a further order. The Federal Register published the decision on Aug. 3.
The action does not decide whether CME’s objections will prevail. It does mean Nasdaq cannot move from regulatory approval to trading while the Commission considers the record. The proposed contracts would be cash-settled and tied directly to a bitcoin index, rather than to shares of a bitcoin exchange-traded product.
CME argues the products belong under CFTC oversight
CME’s petition filed with the SEC argues that options whose value is based directly on bitcoin are commodity option swaps subject to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction. CME also says the SEC’s delegated approval used a novel reading of the Dodd-Frank Act and could create a precedent for securities exchanges to list options tied to other non-security commodities.
Those are CME’s arguments, not findings adopted by the Commission. The SEC’s order records that CME filed its petition after the Division of Trading and Markets approved Nasdaq’s amended proposal on May 22 under delegated authority. The order grants review without resolving the jurisdictional dispute.
Statements are due Aug. 24
The SEC said any party or other person may file a written statement supporting or opposing the delegated approval by Aug. 24. The Commission will then decide what happens to the approval and the stay. Until that process produces a further order, the regulatory path for Nasdaq’s bitcoin index options remains open but inactive.
The dispute matters because it puts the boundary between securities and commodities regulators in the middle of a product designed to give market participants direct bitcoin exposure on a national securities exchange. For now, the practical outcome is narrower: the proposed contracts cannot begin trading under the stayed approval.
